13

Lucky’s neighborhood was very different from ours, studded with rambling, run-down Tudor homes that housed fraternities. The lawns were drier, the trees were newer, and the single family houses were all small and undistinguished-looking, as if trying to avoid attention. This neighborhood had to be pretty noisy on weekends, given all the students, which certainly wouldn’t have made Lucky any nicer.

I turned onto his street, noting which side the even numbers were on, and just then Lucky loped by in black and blue running gear, looking far more athletic than I would have guessed he was from having seen him around the department. His quads were enormous and even when he stopped in front of a white Cape Cod with a privet hedge and variegated spirea out front, he looked powerful. I slowed down, watched him let himself in the front door. All the curtains were drawn and I didn’t think he saw me. His garage door was closed, and looking at the modest house, I couldn’t imagine him driving a car that started at $45,000 and could go almost twenty thousand higher when fully loaded.

But then why not? He could be a car nut or status-hungry and love expensive cars more than anything else. I had to know for sure what he drove, and couldn’t figure out how. Not thinking very clearly, I took several right turns and found myself cruising down his street again. This time when I passed his house, the curtains were open on a picture window and he was staring out at me, shirtless now, glaring, looking angry and tough. Shit! He had seen me when he ran by. Now I was the one who could be accused of stalking. I had truly fallen down the rabbit hole.

I sped off, deciding to confer with Stefan and see if he could help me come up with a plan. I drove homeward pondering how my whole life had changed in a few harrowing days, as completely as if we’d survived a bombing or one of us had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. The vernal beauties of our street left me untouched as I pulled up to our house and parked in the driveway. For the first time since moving in, I imagined what it might be like to leave this gorgeous house. Despite my bluster with Bullerschmidt and Juno Dromgoole, I felt very tentative about my position, and apprehensive about my ability to remain at SUM. It was a far from perfect work environment, but Stefan and I had both fallen in love with Michigan and finding another university where both of us could teach would be very hard, maybe impossible.

I let myself in and looked around for Marco, who usually greeted me in the foyer when I used the front door. I called his name and heard a faint whine. I followed that sound upstairs to the guest room where Stefan was sprawled on the bed, face down. The beige quilt was rolled back and his right arm hung down over the side, fingers almost touching the carpet. His mouth gaped, and he was breathing so deeply I could hear it. It was almost snoring, and sounded very strange. Marco sat near his hand, sniffing it and moaning. Stefan looked drunk and passed out, but he couldn’t have gotten plastered in the time I’d been gone, could he?

“Stefan, I’m home.”

Marco briefly turned to eye me, but shifted his attention back to Stefan, and moaned more loudly. He sounded desolate. I walked to the bed and shook Stefan’s arm, but he didn’t stir. Was he ill? I crouched down next to him, turned his head and felt his forehead—normal. And then I saw a brown plastic pill bottle on the lamp table standing on top of a book about the painter Tamara de Lempicka. The pill bottle was open and empty. I picked it up to read the label. Valium.

I slapped him. “Bastard! Don’t you fucking kill yourself and leave me alone!”

Marco shot out of the room, and Stefan groaned. I took out my phone to dial 911, already picturing the new scandal of an ambulance pulling up outside our door, and hesitated. Stefan mumbled, “What are you doing?” He squinted at me and struggled to sit up.

“Calling 911 to get your stomach pumped!”

“Wha—What for? What are you talking about?” He blinked at me groggily, as if he couldn’t focus well.

“How many did you take? How many Valium did you take?”

Now he was waking up, and he was angry. He felt his reddened cheek. “Did you slap me? You slapped me. I can’t believe it.”

“I can’t believe you’d try to OD on Valium!”

He used his right arm to push himself up and sat very straight, like a drunk trying to prove he was sober. Enunciating his words over-distinctly, he said, “I took one to calm down, and it didn’t help. So I took two more.”

“That’s fifteen milligrams.”

“So? I wasn’t going anywhere. I needed oblivion.”

It was a lot of Valium, more than either of us ever took at a time, but it wasn’t an overdose. I sank into the thick armchair opposite him and hung my head, ashamed at having panicked and slapped him. I mumbled some sort of apology, and didn’t say anything about picturing Father Ryan giving him the last rites.

“Sometimes, Nick, you can be a real idiot.”

“At least it’s only sometimes,” I said, and looked up at him, hoping he would be amused.

He tried to chuckle, but was still too woozy to make it work. Marco crept back into the room, sensed all was well, and then loped over to me, tail wagging, to get his neck scratched. He repeated the process with Stefan, who gingerly helped him onto the bed. Marco settled against a pillow and promptly fell asleep. As always, I envied that.

“You can put away your phone,” Stefan said softly.

I looked down and saw that I was clutching it hard enough to draw blood if it’d had any sharp edges. I slid it into my jeans pocket.

“I came in here,” he explained, “to try the room out, to see if it felt comfortable.” We’d ordered everything in it—bed, chair, tables, lamps, linens—from Restoration Hardware the day after we’d seen a new catalogue, admiring the beige, black, and white blends of fabrics and the bed’s high quilted headboard.

“Do you think we can ever go back across the hall, back to our bedroom?” I asked, looking around the guestroom I rarely went into. It had always seemed attractive to me before, but today, the room looked unlived in. Though I suppose if we slept there, eventually it would feel comfortable, wouldn’t it?

“Nick, you really thought I would commit suicide? After what happened to my student?” Stefan was glaring at me, and I dreaded an argument. I was too worn out.

“I’m sorry, really sorry. But I couldn’t wake you up, Marco was whining, and I saw the pill bottle. How was I supposed to know you only took three?”

“That’s all that was in there, and did you see a suicide note? No. I’m a writer. I would never go without leaving a note.”

“Oh. Good point.” Now I felt truly abashed.

“Hey—that was a joke.”

I couldn’t take it in. As if my body had been frozen somehow in the few minutes I thought he had taken an overdose, I could now sense the blood pulsing too quickly in my veins and my face was flushed, my breathing raspy, and I felt as if I’d been running after something I couldn’t catch. Or maybe running from something was a better way to put it.

Stefan read me perfectly, and said what I was thinking: “Things have been happening so fast, we haven’t had any time to really process what’s been going on.”

“Even if we had the time, would it make a difference? I feel like I’m trapped on the roof of my house in a flood, and the water keeps rising.”

He nodded. “I’ve been praying, trying to pray, but I can’t concentrate, I can’t get quiet enough inside.”

I had never put much stock in prayer, but I sympathized because I knew it was important now to Stefan, who seemed surprisingly alert, given the Valium and the last few days of trauma.

“It must be dinner time,” I said. “Let’s eat something and try to clear our minds. We need to take control. Or at least try.”

We found Marco in the kitchen waiting for his own dinner. I fed him his kibble while Stefan set the table and put some goulash in the microwave to defrost. I told him about Juno’s claim to have axed Alberta Starr herself, which seemed even more extraordinary when I repeated the story, because what could she possibly have done to get rid of a tenured faculty member?

“Maybe she blackmailed Alberta?” Stefan suggested.

“How? With what?”

Then I told him about Juno’s threats if he didn’t stop writing Fieldwork in the Land of Grief.

“Nobody’s going to keep me from finishing that book, not the dean, not Juno, not even you.”

I protested: “Don’t lump me with them.”

“But you’re not crazy about the book, admit it.”

“I’m ambivalent. The whole thing is so raw, and look how much trouble it’s causing us without even being published.” I didn’t want to continue, so I told him that Juno had implied EAR was under surveillance. Stefan went pale, whether from anger or fear, I don’t know.

“Sex tapes,” I said. “What if Alberta Starr was screwing a student in her office? Or doing drugs?”

Stefan thought that over and said, “The timing fits, if there is full surveillance at Parker Hall. The remodeling was finished last summer before the fall semester began.”

“But that would mean everything I’ve said in my office to anyone has been recorded.”

Once again, Stefan looked like Death eating a sandwich, and I felt queasy myself. I told him what Celine had said about the rumored secret committee, and if possible, he looked even more stunned, eyes glassy, mouth tight. “They’re turning SUM into a police state,” he muttered.

The doorbell rang. I made an effort not to curse or sigh, and went out to the door. Happily, it was Vanessa, brandishing a bottle of red wine. “Vino Nobile di Montepulciano 2007,” she said. “I had a lot of this last summer in Tuscany. They’ll tell you in wine stores it needs another year or two, but I think it’s ready now.”

“I’m ready now,” I said. “Thanks!”

Vanessa was looking sleek and cool in a black leather skirt and matching sleeveless silk top. She had the arms of Linda Hamilton in the Terminator movies; I don’t know why, but I found that as reassuring as her Brooklyn toughness.

I brought the bottle in to Stefan like a kid showing off his A for homework, “Look what Vanessa brought us.”

Stefan grinned. “One of my favorites. Our favorites,” he corrected.

Vanessa glanced from me to Stefan and back. “Good,” she said. “You’re still talking to each other.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I warned you. Legal trouble drives couples apart,” she said. “I’ve seen it happen a lot. The stress and humiliation, the burden just gets to be too much.”

I closed my mind to those possibilities of chaos infecting my relationship with Stefan. I brought out big wine glasses and opened the bottle. I didn’t wait for the wine to breathe; instead, I poured us all generous portions and we toasted silently, clinking glasses by the kitchen island.

“Wow,” I said. “This wine is big.” It was round and full-bodied, with a terrific long finish. I thanked Vanessa again, and we invited her to join us for dinner and a strategy session.

“You’re having goulash?” she said. “I love goulash! I’m only half-Italian, the other half is Hungarian.”

“Like Stephanie Plum!” I said.

Vanessa frowned. “Who’s that?”

“You know, the heroine in Janet Evanovich’s mysteries?”

She shrugged, but then said, “Wait—the funny ones set in New Jersey? I’ve heard about them, but I don’t typically read books like that. I’m more into biography and history.” She turned to Stefan and asked, “Does he always see things in terms of books?”

“I think we both do. Occupational hazard.” Stefan set another place at the table. It might have been too hot a day for any kind of stew, but the air conditioning kept the house pleasant, and I found just the idea of goulash very comforting. The wine didn’t hurt, either. But before we started, Stefan handed Vanessa a check I didn’t know he had written.

“We haven’t had any time to talk about a retainer—is five thousand okay, or do you need more?” He looked at me, and I nodded my approval, wondering how I hadn’t even thought of raising this question with Vanessa. She was a lawyer after all, not a social worker.

She nodded, and put the check in her skirt pocket. “I wanted to give you time to recover. And yes, five thousand is just fine for now.” She spoke about money without embarrassment; I liked that. Marco liked her; he had fallen asleep under Vanessa’s chair after finishing his kibble.

We ate and talked about the news in Michigan, climate change, the price of gas, and the culture shock of moving to Michiganapolis from the East Coast. We marveled at how people in-state tended to claim they had no accent, and how Michiganders didn’t seem to travel much, even in the Midwest. It was a pleasant, stress-free conversation, and Vanessa deftly kept it that way until we had espresso.

“Now, fill me in,” she said, crossing her arms, but the gesture wasn’t like Juno’s, cold and forbidding. Somehow it seemed to invite intimacy.

I complied with ease, and I could feel her taking mental notes as I walked her through the days since the night our home was invaded. She was clearly not the kind of person who interrupted her concentration by writing things down when she was focused and listening. That, too, reassured me.

When I was done, she asked for specifics about the parking lot incident in Ludington. “You have some exposure there,” she said, “if he decides to sue you or involve the police, but the longer it goes, the better your chances. I’m guessing from how you described him that he wants to keep you off-balance, so he isn’t going to report the encounter.”

I thought that was a great choice of words, better than “incident” or anything else that suggested violence. I didn’t mind the rhetorical camouflage.

“Did his car have a Michigan license plate?” she asked.

I felt like an idiot admitting that I didn’t remember, but Vanessa wasn’t perturbed. She probably had lots of clients come up short on more important details.

Stefan asked, “Do you think he’s the one who’s after us? Stone?”

Vanessa sighed, uncrossing her arms and folding her French-manicured nails. “I like both of them for your stalker, him and that Bitterman guy. But we need something more than suspicion.”

“Can Lucky have me arrested for stalking?”

Vanessa laughed. “You drove by his house a coupla times? Puh-leeze. I’d like to see him try.”

“Is there a way we can find out what kind of car Lucky drives? And check where Stone’s car was rented or if it really was a rental?”

Vanessa leaned back and crossed her long legs. She was wearing glittery black Jimmy Choo pumps I’d seen in Vanity Fair not so long ago. “That’s pretty simple,” she said. “My firm employs a husband-and-wife PI team. I can have them find out in probably a day or two at most. They’ll check with the secretary of state’s office and the courts if they need to. Both of them used to be cops, and people do them favors all the time. It’ll just go on your tab. Oh, and if you want, they can check on that white van you saw on campus, too, if you got the plate number. No? Okay, another time for that.”

Before she could go on, I told her about the two threatening phone calls, and she mused, “Okay, maybe it’s time to have your lines monitored. Let me think about it. Now, what about your department chair, that June—”

“Juno. Juno Dromgoole.”

“Christ, what a name,” Vanessa murmured.

“Why are you asking about her?”

Vanessa studied her nails for a moment, then looked back up at me. “She sounds pretty vengeful and determined.”

“But we used to be friends, or something like friends.” Then I added. “Before she was the chair.”

“There you go—used to be. But now she’s got power and she’s abusing it. What if she’s out to get you? I’m just thinking out loud here. I have friends in academia in New York and Boston. I know jobs are very tight now. What if she wants to get rid of one or both of you because she has friends she’d like to have hired in your place?”

Stefan and I exchanged a long, anxious look. Vanessa’s chilling scenario was all too possible.

Vanessa went on: “She doesn’t sound mentally stable to me, but she’s functional, right? Maybe she and your dean could be in on this together … or she’s just going rogue.”

“There’s something else,” I said. “The administration isn’t happy with us, well, with Stefan because of his new book. It’s about a student of his who committed suicide.”

“The one who hanged himself on campus?” she asked. “I was in Rome when that happened, but I did hear something about it.”

“That’s the guy,” Stefan said quietly. “They want me to drop the book.”

“Why? Are you blaming the school for his death? No? So there’s nothing actionable in your book. And aren’t you allowed to publish whatever you like?”

“Nobody at SUM is worried about infringing on academic freedom—they’re as paranoid about bad PR as North Korea.”

Vanessa nodded several times as if absorbing all the new information. “You aren’t the most popular guys at SUM, are you? Right now, anyway. Do you know what she drives?”

“You mean Juno? It’s a black Chrysler 300. She buys a new one every other year. She brags about it.”

Vanessa closed her eyes as if picturing the car. “Doesn’t that have a fat grill, kind of like the Cadillac XTS?”

“The Caddy has that little shield of theirs on the center of the grill.”

“Right, but think about it. Is it possible you mixed up the two cars because you were distracted? Are you absolutely positive it wasn’t a Chrysler following you in town?”

I wanted to say I was sure, but with everything that had been happening this past week, nothing seemed certain, especially since I now had to worry that the chair of my own department might have launched a vicious campaign to drive me from my job and my home.