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She still had the book with her when the state police picked them up near Point of Rocks. At first the book had reminded her of the time with Walter, and she hadn’t wanted to read it. But then her high school boyfriend had said they should watch the film on his family’s VCR, and she’d decided to finish the book first. She had plunged back in, following Michael into his Sicilian exile, feeling a bizarre kinship with him-she had been exiled, too-then on to his wedding night, where he had discovered his young bride was a virgin, and a virgin was the very best thing to be, according to Mario Puzo. She had stopped reading there and forgotten about the book until Vo
“How would he know?” she said. Vo
The other phone rang, full-throated, robust. It had no answering machine, no voice mail, another decision on which Verizon had fought with her. It would ring forever if Eliza allowed it. Phones never rang that way anymore. It was one of the interesting things about older movies, where phones might ring six, seven, eight times, or-in that one gangster movie of which Peter was so fond-something like thirty-seven times. Nowadays, phones rang maybe three or four times, then rolled over to voice mail, or got picked up by answering machines, or-
She picked up on the seventh ring, almost hoping it was news about her car warranty or mortgage or credit card. The automated voice gave her a moment of hope. But this time, the voice was asking if she would accept a collect call from Walter Bowman.
She said she would.
“ Elizabeth?”
“Yes.”
There was an echoing metallic sound that seemed to go on and on. “Excuse me,” Walter said, and the noise grew louder, swelled, then fell back, ending with a few faded clangs.
“What was that?” She had intended to ask him as few questions as possible, to put the burden of conversation on him, but her curiosity got the better of her.
“Oh, one of the guys went down to Jarratt and got a stay, so we’re kicking him back in.”
“Kicking-?”
“We kick the doors, in solidarity, when a man gets a postponement. Although I have to tell you, I don’t really have much for this particular fellow. He’s managed the trick of being both the meanest and dumbest man here.”
She was nonplussed. It felt like the polite conversation a salesman makes as he settles in, getting ready to launch into his pitch. She wanted to blurt out: What do you want? Get to it, stop stalling. Before she could ask, her cell phone buzzed from her pocket. She glanced down at its screen. Iso’s school.
“Walter, can you hold on? There’s another call coming in on my cell and…”
She did not want to explain why the call could not be ignored, but nor was she happy when Walter said: “Sure, I understand. You’ve got young kids.”
“My husband told me he might need me to pick him up at the airport today,” she lied, with a promptness that made her rather proud. The old-fashioned phone could not be muted, so she walked out into the hall, determined that Walter not overhear the conversation with Iso’s middle school.
It was the principal. “Can you come in, Mrs. Benedict? We have a…situation.”
“Is Isobel hurt? Sick?” In her worry, she couldn’t help using her daughter’s full name.
“No, just something to discuss before it becomes a problem. And we know that Iso’s brother is in elementary school, so we thought it would be easier to have you come in now, rather than complicate your life with after-school detention, which means Iso would miss the bus.”
“Detention?”
“Only if it were warranted and it’s not.” A pause. “Yet.”
She walked back to the beige phone, tried to think what she could say. “Walter, I’m sorry, but this is urgent-”
“Sure, sure,” he said. “We’ll catch up later. We have a lot to talk about.”
As anxious as she was about Iso and the unspecified situation, Eliza couldn’t take Walter’s invitation to end the call. “Do we? Do we really have that much to discuss?”
“I think so,” Walter said. “And although I know you doubt this, it will be mutually beneficial, Elizabeth. Really, you have to believe that I have nothing but your best interest at heart. I’m doing this for you.”
She said good-bye, grabbed her purse and her keys, headed out to the garage, and then, almost as an afterthought, dashed back inside and threw up in the powder-room toilet.
22
TRUDY TACKETT WAS IN HER CLOSET, taking careful inventory of her clothes, a bia
“This alcove would make a wonderful dressing room,” the real estate agent had purred to Trudy almost two decades ago, but it was Terry who had taken those words to heart and hired a company to transform the space. Most women would envy that kind of spousal devotion, and Trudy was grateful for it in an absent, distracted way. She did remember being bemused that the closet designer had included a small bench upholstered in tufted velvet. Trudy liked clothes well enough-obviously, someone had shopped for this wardrobe-but she didn’t want to sit in her closet and commune with them, for goodness’ sakes. And she couldn’t imagine why else one would have a bench in a closet, even a clever little one such as this, with storage hidden under its bland beige seat, round and pale as a mushroom, or Miss Muffet’s tuffet.
(What’s a tuffet? Holly had asked when she was five, looking up from an ancient copy of Mother Goose, Trudy’s own. A hassock. What’s a hassock? A tuffet. Holly had laughed. Holly had been the only person who glimpsed that side of Trudy, the girly silliness that had never found a place in the hypermasculine, rough-and-tumble Tackett family. Terry and the boys joked the way they played games-fast, rough, loud, on point. Until Holly arrived, Trudy was the straight woman, the dowager. Once Holly left-well, there wasn’t much to joke about.)
But now the time had come that Trudy sometimes needed that bench, that hassock, that tuffet, to put on slacks, hose, shoes, all the things she had once slipped on while standing on one leg, nonchalant as a crane. Her balance was no longer reliable, and her lower back was prone to going out over the smallest indignities. I’m deteriorating, she told Terry cheerfully. She imagined her body covered with little Post-its, each one marking a specific area of decline-the creaking knee, the popping hip, the stiffening shoulders. She pictured a suit of Post-its, sharp yellow edges riffling in the breeze, at once stiff and pliant. She would like such a suit, an outfit that would a