The Last Night Out Read online

  She was sweating when she reached Halsted, but the active street relieved her anxiety. Patrons were emerging from the local pubs wearing khakis and cardigans and topsiders or running shoes – far less style-conscious than the Rush Street regulars. She toyed with popping into one of the neighborhood bars for a quick one, but time was running out and the vial in her purse was empty. The stuff in that vial was the only thing that eased the pain, and her mission was to see it filled.

  She hailed a cab and gave the driver a Newtown address. The cab stank of body odor, so she rolled down the window and rested her head against the doorframe, her eyes taking in the scene with lazy indifference. The cab stopped for a red light, arm’s length away from a couple so completely engaged in each other they didn’t see her. The man she knew well, the petite blonde woman she didn’t. They were laughing about something, the man’s arm wrapped possessively about the woman. Angie stuck her head out the open window.

  ‘Harvey!’ Angie screamed. ‘Over here, asshole!’

  Her estranged husband turned his head, his eyes wide with the shock of seeing Angie hanging out of a taxi. The blonde stared in ignorance. The light changed and the taxi started moving. Angie pushed her torso out the window and continued screaming as nearly everyone on the sidewalk turned to watch. ‘That’s right, you no good son of a bitch. Go ahead, flaunt it in public. You can’t even wait until the divorce is final. I’m going to get you for every cent you have, you bastard. I’ll see you in court, you lousy Polack!’ The couple disappeared from sight, and she settled back into her seat, feeling sorry for herself.

  What went wrong, Harvey, she was thinking, that you treat me like this? Didn’t I always look good for you, keep your house clean, make your favorite foods? Wasn’t the sex great – at first anyhow? Why couldn’t you have been more understanding of me? Couldn’t you wait until I was feeling better? Didn’t you know how hard it was losing those babies? Angie pictured the For Sale sign in front of their home, the profits of the sale to become the spoils of divorce, and her eyes filled with tears.

  She was searching her purse for a tissue when the cab came to a lurching stop in front of her destination, a dive named The Zone. Her purse tumbled from her lap, landing upside down on the litter-covered floor. ‘Goddammit, look what you did! You should be more careful,’ she snapped.

  ‘Four dollars, lady,’ said the cabbie.

  She wanted to curse him out for even charging her. She retrieved her wallet from the floor and took out a ten. She placed the wallet on the seat beside her and continued collecting her things from the rubbish-strewn floor, stuffing lipsticks and lotions and the empty vial back into the oversized bag. She was so pissed there was no way in hell this guy was getting a tip. When he finally held six singles over the seat back, she grabbed the money and shoved it into her purse. Then she jumped out of the cab and slammed the door behind her.

  Her wallet still sitting on the seat as the taxi pulled away.

  The pavement was undulating as she walked down the dark steps to the bar’s entrance, clutching her purse tightly to her side. She stumbled once or twice before she made her way to the concrete landing. She yanked the door open with a vengeance and went inside.

  NINE

  I pulled into Carol Anne’s driveway and parked behind Michael’s silver Porsche with MD2020 plates. I was beyond relieved to arrive at my destination in one piece, especially after having had to pull over to the shoulder of the Edens to throw up … twice. Even now the dry heaves teased the back of my throat. But in the scheme of things, no matter how sick I felt, anything was better than being in my apartment with its suffocating atmosphere of guilt. I opened the car door and sat immobile, listening to the sound of lawnmowers running in the distance and birds chirping in the trees, the consoling sounds of suburbia. Sounds anchored in happy childhood.

  I was still sitting in the car when Carol Anne came running down the driveway, her face laced with tears. I pulled myself out of my red VW bug and took her in my arms. We crushed one another close in grief.

  ‘I just can’t believe it,’ she repeated over and over, her tears wet against my cheek.

  ‘I know. I know.’ It was the only response I could muster.

  We stepped apart and stared into each other’s faces. Carol Anne’s eyes were puffy and red from crying as to be expected. But they were also ringed in black as if she hadn’t slept. I knew that face from adolescence. Something else lurked behind those eyes besides the death of a friend.

  ‘Are you all right? You look almost as bad as me.’

  ‘As I,’ Carol Anne corrected me, sniffling.

  ‘Jeez, I was the English major. As I.’

  Carol Anne took her turn to give me the once over, noting my scarlet eyes and whisker raw face. ‘What happened to you? You look like you’ve been through a blender.’

  ‘Tell me.’ My stomach had settled, but my head was still pounding relentlessly. ‘I really need a cup of coffee.’

  We went into the house and through the foyer where six of us said our good-byes the night before. Reduced to five forever more. As we walked arm in arm through the living room, I glanced out the window at the kidney-shaped pool in the back. In my mind’s eye, Angie was out there, egging the stripper on with her foghorn lungs, her bottom shaking in her tight slacks, her breasts jiggling in her low-cut shirt. Her taunt echoed in my brain. Let’s see the gun, Officer Tony.

  ‘It’s like I can hear her,’ said Carol Anne, putting words to my thoughts.

  ‘Yeah, me too.’

  We took the service hall, past a dining room with a Wedgewood ceiling installed during the Jazz Age, and ended up in the kitchen. Carol Anne poured two cups of coffee from the carafe and we sat down at the granite island beneath a ring of copper pots. The house was eerily quiet, the absence of pounding feet, blaring TVs, and baby’s cries almost louder than their presence.

  ‘Where’s Michael?’ I asked, taking a cautionary look around.

  ‘He’s still sleeping.’

  ‘So late? I thought he was an early riser.’

  ‘We were up late,’ said Carol Anne.

  So maybe that explained the black rings under her eyes. Married people taking advantage of the kids being gone for the night. Good for them. The stability of her marriage only served to remind me of how I’d jeopardized my upcoming one. We talked about Angie being dead and speculated about what might have happened, my mind only half on the subject matter as my actions pounded on my conscience like an irregular heartbeat. The guilt continued to build until it was a pot ready to blow its lid, and I couldn’t hold it back any longer. ‘Carol Anne, this is going to sound demented that I need to talk about myself at a time like this, but there’s something I need to unload. Something really, really bad.’

  Her dark blue eyes grew wide in her tired face. ‘You killed Angie?’

  ‘Don’t even joke.’ Keeping my eyes riveted to the door in case Michael made an appearance, I whispered ever so quietly, ‘I cheated on Flynn.’

  ‘You what?’ Her response was both reflexive and loud.

  ‘Shhh,’ I pleaded, searching her face for understanding. She was my best friend in the world, and I needed her on my side.

  Our friendship dated back to kindergarten and we understood each other in ways no one else could. We shared common backgrounds, both coming from families of all girls, Carol Anne the third of four, me the middle born of three. Growing up, we found in each other someone who knew what it was like to have a know-it-all older sister and a spoiled-brat younger one, someone who wasn’t competing for Daddy’s attention or trying to steal your favorite shirt. We knew everything about each other – or so I thought at the time. There was an unspoken pact between us that not only would each other’s secrets always remain secret, but we would never sit in judgment of one another.

  So my hopes for absolution were pretty much dashed to smithereens when Carol Anne’s next words were, ‘Oh … My … God. Have you lost your mind?’

  ‘Thanks for the vote of conf
idence.’

  ‘I’m sorry, you just took me by surprise. With Angie and all, this is just too much.’ She saw the shattered look on my face and relented. ‘Tell me what happened.’

  Piece by piece, I recounted my story of meeting the carpenter in the bar and buying him a drink, of dancing with him, of letting him drive me home and inviting him into my apartment where one thing led to … well, another. When my story was finished, I lowered my aching head into my hands as if hiding from my mistake could make it go away. ‘Last night was just one big fucking nightmare. Now Angie’s dead and I’ve done this horrible thing. It’s all so surreal. Here I am marrying this great guy and I go and screw up like this. I’m going to hell. I know I am. Oh, God. What if I’m pregnant?’

  Her eyes widened more than I’d ever seen them widen. ‘Don’t even think it. You used something, didn’t you?’

  ‘This morning. But not last night.’

  The silence screamed. The way Carol Anne stared at me reminded me frighteningly of my mother. When she finally did speak, her tone was the sort reserved for the worst of offenders. ‘You have lost your mind! I can almost understand about last night. You were really drunk. But this morning? There was a “this morning” too?’

  My shame and humiliation were complete. ‘God as my witness, I don’t know what possessed me. It was like some kind of temporary insanity. After Suzanne called and told me about Angie, he was so comforting and suddenly I wanted it – wanted him – so much that I didn’t give a hoot. I know I should have stopped myself, but I didn’t want to. Then. Now I’m so ashamed I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘All right. All right, stop punishing yourself. That’s not going to solve anything.’ I felt a modicum of relief, as Carol Anne turned sympathetic. ‘This sort of thing probably happens more often than people care to admit. Like some last fling. You made a huge mistake, but you’d never do that to Flynn again, right?’

  Flynn’s name opened fresh floodgates of guilt. For reasons beyond my comprehension, the guy was so totally in love with me that sometimes my feelings for him seemed lukewarm in comparison. But fanned by the flames of impending loss, my love for him surged to a newfound intensity. I loved him more than anything on this planet. ‘Cheat on him again? Not in a million years. Now I realize how really important he is to me.’

  ‘See,’ she comforted me. ‘So maybe this happened for a reason. And as far as being pregnant, the odds are against it. I’d worry more about disease.’ She pursed her lips and rethought her statement. ‘When is your period due anyway?’

  ‘Ten days.’

  My words fell with a thud as both of us counted backwards in our heads. There couldn’t have been a worse possible time.

  ‘Oh, it’ll be OK,’ said Carol Anne with false assurance.

  ‘And if it isn’t?’

  ‘You’re still doing the celibacy before marriage thing?’ I nodded feebly.

  ‘Abortion?’ The look I gave her ended all discussion on that topic. ‘Then I guess you’d have to tell him it’s his.’

  ‘Tell him what is his?’ The male voice nearly sent me to the floor. Having slackened my vigil on the door, Michael Niebaum had snuck in behind us and was standing in the middle of the room, a Grateful Dead T-shirt hanging over the top his jeans, his thick black curls still shiny wet from a shower. Lucky for me, he hadn’t heard the first part of the conversation.

  ‘Choice of the rehearsal dinner entrée,’ Carol Anne rebounded.

  ‘Back so soon?’ Michael said to me, obviously not interested in anything to do with my rehearsal dinner. He kissed the top of Carol Anne’s head from behind. The tenderness of the gesture nearly made me cry. ‘Why didn’t you just stay overnight?’

  ‘Believe me, I wish I had.’

  ‘I’m afraid there’s some terrible news, Michael,’ said Carol Anne, spinning around on the stool to face her husband. ‘Angie’s been found dead.’

  In my entire life, I have never seen anything like the look that passed over Michael Niebaum’s face. His great dark eyes glazed over like they were gazing into the depths of some unspeakable horror and he drained of all color. He turned abruptly away and went to the coffee pot where he poured himself a cup with trembling hands.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked, staring out the window with his back to us.

  ‘We’re still not quite sure, but it looks like she was murdered. Kelly was out running this morning and saw some kind of commotion in Lincoln Park and there was a body and … it was Angie. Isn’t it just beyond belief? I mean, we were just with her last night …’ Carol Anne’s voice trailed off and then came back afresh. ‘Michael, they found her near Belmont Harbor of all places.’

  ‘What?’ When he turned he had recovered some of his color, though he was still chalky for a person whose complexion was a natural tan. He stood contemplating what Carol Anne had said. Then he grimaced and his hands went to his abdomen. ‘Excuse me, I’ll be right back,’ he said and he darted from the room.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Carol Anne called behind him. ‘He has an irritable colon,’ she explained. ‘I guess the news about Angie is as shocking to him as it is to us.’

  The phone rang, and Carol Anne looked at me warily as she picked it up. ‘Hello. Yes. Yes, this is she,’ she said. Police, she mouthed. I listened silently to her side of the conversation.

  ‘Yes, I do know about the murder. Uh-huh. When? This afternoon? Yes, I’ll be here.’ There was a pause followed by, ‘Maggie Trueheart? Well, actually …’

  Terror overcame me. I couldn’t talk to the police. Not yet. I had no idea what they would ask me about last night and an even worse idea of how I might answer without sealing my own coffin. I waved my hand back and forth in front of my throat as if I was cutting it. Which I pretty much wished I were. My ever-perceptive best friend came to my aid.

  ‘Actually, she was here, but she just left. Yes, officer. I mean, Detective. Yes, I’ll see you then.’

  Carol Anne hung up and her eyes darted at me. ‘The police are coming out here to talk to me about Angie. Why were you hushing me?’

  ‘Because they’ll want to talk to me and I can’t talk to them right now.’ Panic gripped me as I jumped to my feet. Guilt and sorrow were now in the back seat, having given way to the deeper-rooted instinct of survival. Something told me I was going to have to tell some lies and I didn’t want to have to do it in front of Carol Anne. Or Michael. I grabbed my purse and headed for the door. ‘I’ve gotta go.’

  Carol Anne walked me down the driveway and stood beside me as I started the car.

  ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’

  ‘I’m not sure of anything, Carol Anne. Except that the way I’m feeling right now, things would be better if I was the one in the morgue.’

  ‘Don’t say that, Maggie,’ said Carol Anne, reaching into the car and touching my shoulder. ‘They’re coming here to talk about Angie. They don’t know about you and they don’t care about you. Don’t worry. I’m on your side.’

  ‘Thanks, C. A. I needed that.’ I started the car and pulled down the long driveway.

  TEN

  My thoughts were on Flynn the entire drive back into the city, the man I was to marry in two weeks, the fiancé I had betrayed. We’d met at Natasha and Arthur’s Memorial Day party last year, a set-up on their part I was to later learn. Having finally taken off the extra thirty pounds I’d been carrying since high school, I was acting both clever and flirtatious. After years of being chubby and funny, you know, the girl with the great personality, my trimmed-down version was the cute girl with the great personality. No more chubby in the equation.

  Flynn and I hit it off right away. We had a shared love of sushi, music and movies. He had driven me home and we sat in his car in front of my apartment until two in the morning, comparing favorite movies. We both had the atrocious taste to like Doris Day movies and Airplane but to also appreciate the classics like The Third Man and Casablanca. He found it intriguing that I had chosen to attend a state school like the Unive
rsity of Iowa and major in literature when he’d gone Ivy League at Dartmouth with a major in Finance. He walked me to the door that night and gave me a warm, but not too warm, kiss good night, and I sensed my vanilla life was about to change. When he called to ask me out the next day, I was certain.

  And my life did change. For the first time since high school, I was part of a ‘we.’ It wasn’t just me anymore, or me and the girls. There was a man in my life. And according to every woman around, Flynn was quite a man. He was good-looking, a dedicated son and brother, and loved by all his friends. He came from a wealthy family, but he was successful in his own right, having started a swiftly growing software company – whatever software was. He told me that first night that he was going to be worth at least nine figures, and at thirty-six, he had a good leg up on those riches. He had already put a down payment on a house for us in the Gold Coast that we would close on after the honeymoon. The house was more of every woman’s dream – every person’s dream for that matter. Four stories of hardwood floors, granite baths, and hand-carved balustrades. But as the wedding drew nearer, I found myself having trouble getting excited about the dream home. It felt so excessive. My mother castigated me for being blasé about my good fortune, herself ecstatic that after her long years of worry, her thirty-three-year-old daughter would no longer be living in a one-bedroom rental apartment in a building without proper security.

  The truth is, I’d been blasé about a lot lately, including Flynn. I wasn’t sure if I fully understood what being with one person forever really meant. Except for my first love in high school, my experience with the opposite sex was limited. Before Flynn came along, my relationships had consisted of brief affairs and even briefer one-nighters. As a fat girl, it’s easy to get them to sleep with you – once. Getting them to come back was the tricky part.