I switched off the television in Amanda’s living room at six minutes past eight o’clock the next morning and went to the window to look out over the beach along Lake Michigan. I was warmed by the same blue-and-red striped terry robe I’d worn during our marriage – which, touchingly, she’d kept – and by the coffee I’d just made in the same Mr Coffee we’d bought as newlyweds. Which, touchingly, she’d also kept.
I took no comfort in the breaking news bulletin that had just aired on Channel 8. Jenny had been circumspect in reporting that senator-elect Timothy Wade was set to announce his resignation at a noon press conference. She’d reported the rumor that he was stepping away to care for his ailing sister, but then she pointedly mentioned that there were other rumors swirling around about him as well. She left no doubt that she wasn’t done with the story.
Amanda came out of the bedroom dressed in a dark suit, pressing a last earring into place. ‘I caught Jennifer Gale’s report in the bedroom. She did a nice job.’
‘So did you, with your friends.’
‘I told them you do not yield once your mind is made up.’
‘The pundits are going to rip apart Wade’s announcement, looking for the truth.’
‘He’ll be brief and he’ll take no questions,’ she said.
‘Perhaps someone will learn something in a month or a year that will force a re-examination of the Marilyn Paul case.’
‘Jennifer Gale?’
‘She’ll never quit.’
‘Fair enough. For us, there will be a newly appointed senator by the end of the month. A Democrat, as was agreed, until a special election is held. The committee is meeting next week.’
‘Wade’s Committee of Twenty-Four?’
‘It’s no longer Wade’s.’ She picked up her purse. ‘What’s up with you today?’
‘A drive to the south side to pick up a new thermostat, then out west, for a humidifier, and then home to resume working on heat.’
‘That reminds me,’ she said and headed back into the bedroom. She returned with a small box wrapped in brightly colored paper and tied with a red bow. ‘A little something I picked up for you.’
I opened it. It was a box of Band-Aids, plain ones.
‘I’m to give up the Flintstones? No more Fred, Wilma and Barney flapping around on my hands?’
She touched the sleeve of my old robe. ‘Get your furnace finished. I’ll be looking for heat at your place, too.’
I gave her one of my finest leers.
It wasn’t until two o’clock that I rolled up to the turret but someone had rolled up before me, quite literally. A bronze-colored Lexus sedan had run up and over the shallow curb in front of the turret and rested diagonally across the narrow ribbon of grass I pass off as a front lawn. I was not alarmed. The jolt of smacking the curb must have killed the motor before the car could slam into the turret. Only the wipers still arcing across the windshield, switched on by a driver hoping to see through a blur, signaled that the ignition was still on. It had not rained for days.
The purple Northwestern University decal in the rear window betrayed the identity of the woman whose frosted blonde head was leaned back on the front seat, slack-jawed, sound asleep.
I tapped on the side glass. Nothing. I tapped harder. Still nothing.
I beat it with my fist. The woman jerked forward, wild-eyed.
‘Bipsie?’ I shouted to the glass.
She powered down the window. ‘You Dek?’
I opened the door and she pushed herself toward the opening. I caught her before she tumbled to the dirt and helped her out.
‘We thought we’d stop by after luncheon,’ she said with remarkable clarity, steadying herself against the side of the car until it and the ground stopped moving. ‘Long time no hear.’
I bent to look inside the car. It was empty.
‘You came with someone?’ I asked.
She bent to look in the front and the back. ‘Well, I can’t imagine …’
I had the queasiest of flashbacks, an unreasoning and irrational remembrance, of a Bipsie who’d plucked my name from a sorority newsletter, a Bipsie more sober, more officious. A Bipsie more dead.
I ran, afraid and unthinking, around the turret and down to the happily bobbing plastic debris in the Willahock.
This Bipsie lay on her back on the bench, like something tossed up by the roil of the river. One of her feet pointed more or less toward the dam; the other had dropped to the ground. Her eyes were closed, in peace, but her mink coat was open, as was her mouth. She snored mightily.
I laughed in relief.
I’d been restored to my more rightful matters.