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He opened it and found a note, the handwriting wavy with emotion, not unlike the voice of the woman in the pink suit.
Dear Mr. Bethany:
You should know that your wife is having an affair with her boss, Jeff Baumgarten. Why don’t you put a stop to this? There are children involved. Besides, Mr. Baumgarten is very happily married and will never leave his wife. This is why mothers do not belong in offices.
The letter was unsigned, but Dave had no doubt that it was written by Mrs. Baumgarten, which meant that her Easter mission had been an elaborate bit of fakery. Dave didn’t know much about Miriam’s boss, but he knew he was Jewish, prominently Jewish, probably just a few years ahead of Dave at Pikesville High School. Perhaps Mrs. Baumgarten had pla
He dialed Miriam’s office number, and let it ring, but the receptionist didn’t pick up. Ah well, Miriam was probably still out at an open house, and the receptionist had left for the day. He would ask her about it tonight, something he should do more often anyway. Ask Miriam about her work. Because surely it was her work that had given her so much confidence recently. It was the commissions that accounted for the glow in her face, the bounce in her step, the tears in the bathroom late at night.
The tears in the bathroom …but no, that was Su
Dave tore the letter in pieces, grabbed his keys, and locked up, heading down the street to Monaghan’s Tavern, another Woodlawn establishment doing a booming business on the Saturday before Easter.
CHAPTER 10
You were supposed to stay away from me,” Su
“I got worried when you didn’t come back from the bathroom. I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”
It wasn’t a lie, not exactly. Certainly Heather had wondered why Su
She took a seat two rows back from Su
Heather had assumed that Su
“It was boring anyway,” Heather said. “Although it was scary when that guy got his nose cut.”
“You don’t know anything,” Su
“Let’s go to Hoschild’s. Or the Pants Corral. I want to look at the Sta-Prest slacks.”
“Slacks don’t wrinkle that much,” Su
“It’s what all the girls are wearing now that we’re allowed to wear pants to school.”
“You shouldn’t want a thing just because everyone else has it. You don’t want to run with the herd.” That was their father’s voice coming through Su
“Okay, let’s go to Harmony Hut, then, or the bookstore.” On her last visit to the mall, Heather had sneaked a look at what seemed to be a dirty book, although she couldn’t be sure. There were lots of promising descriptions of the heroine’s breasts pressing against the thin fabric of her dress, usually a good sign that something dirty was about to happen. She was trying to work up her nerve to read the book with the zipper on the cover-not a real zipper, like the Rolling Stones album cover that Su
“I don’t want to do anything with you,” Su
“And you’ll buy me Karmelkorn.”
“I gave you five dollars. Buy your own Karmelkorn.”
“You said five dollars and Karmelkorn.”