“Can you drive a little faster?” Amy squinted at the small visor mirror, opening her makeup case, the compact one she carried in her purse at all times. “We’ll be late.”
David allowed himself a quick glance at his wife before snapping his eyes back to the road. She was drawing a dark line under her eye with an eyeliner pencil. A sharp eyeliner pencil. If he needed to slam on the brakes, the pencil would go right through her eyeball. Since he didn’t want to replay that conversation for the tenth time, he just said, “I’m doing the speed limit.”
“You’re worried about a ticket? Please.” She switched to the other eye. “I’m the new Deputy District Attorney. I can fix a ticket.” A sly smile.
David smiled, too, but he kept the Escalade at the speed limit. He’d estimated the travel time and predicted they would have twenty minutes to spare. No need to speed.
He glanced at the kids in the rearview mirror. Anna sat securely in her car seat, a dreamy expression on her face as she looked out the window. Amy and David had declared her potty training to have officially “taken” on her fourth birthday last week, a fact that made it a little easier for Amy’s sister Elizabeth to agree to take the kids for the evening. The party for Amy in the city marked the first time they’d been out in six weeks.
He shifted his gaze to Brent, who had his head down into his brand-new 3DS, one of those handheld video games. David hated the blinking, bleeping noisy thing. He’d brought home a tennis racket for the boy two days ago. It had gone into Brent’s closet next to the baseball glove, the football, and the roller blades. Brent would eventually get David’s height. Maybe he’d try basketball next. Not hockey. David just didn’t get hockey.
They were good kids, David reminded himself. They just weren’t like David when he was their ages.
Who was?
He turned the Escalade into the neighborhood where Amy’s sister had purchased a modest home six months ago. Her husband, Jeff, had been a department manager at Home Depot for six years and had finally been promoted to full store manager. The new house followed, and Elizabeth had quit her bank teller job to stay home with their eighteen-month-old son full time.
David pulled into the driveway. He saw the living room curtain pull aside then drop back again. David’s eyes flashed over the lawn and front of the house. The hedges had been trimmed. There was an orange Frisbee under the back left tire of Jeff’s Ford pickup. The gutters needed cleaning. There were tire indentations in the grass next to the driveway where someone had parked.
David climbed out of the SUV, opened the rear passenger door, and scanned the neighborhood as he unbuckled Anna from the car seat. The neighbors across the street still had the old Chevy Impala up on blocks. David couldn’t spot any progress in the restoration.
Anna threw her arms around David’s neck, pulled him close to mash her cheek against his. “Daddy, I want to watch the Dora DVD.”
“I don’t know if Aunt Lizzy has Dora, princess.”
“I want spaghetti.”
“We’ll ask.”
Amy and Elizabeth were already exchanging hugs on the front steps. Elizabeth was a shorter, younger version of Amy and still carried some of the pregnancy weight on her hips. She smiled brightly at her sister, eyes gleaming and big, motherhood still a wonder to her. The sisters were close, but Elizabeth’s toddler and Amy’s increased workload kept them from getting together as often as they wanted.
Jeff stood next to her, holding a beer in a Home Depot huggie. He was apple-cheeked with a patchy beard and an all-American beer gut. Not for the first time, David felt a vague pang of envy upon seeing Jeff. Here was a man who worked hard and made an honest living for his family, but he was able to completely unplug on the weekend. When he was home with his family, his job was banished utterly from his mind, a cold beer and a football game on the big-screen TV. He didn’t deal with demanding customers or unruly employees. No supply problems or trouble with vendors. Not during family time. Jeff could turn it off.
Turning off wasn’t so easy for David. He’d been trying.
“Hey, David.” Jeff extended his hand, and they shook.
“Good seeing you, Jeff.” David noticed the fresh sunburn on Jeff’s neck, the dirt under his fingernails. He’d been working in the garden again, trying to get the tomatoes and pole beans up and running. There’d been loose talk of a green house.
Amy followed Elizabeth inside with the kids in tow. It was David’s job to hang back and trade chitchat with Jeff. The intricacies of in-law diplomacy had become his specialty.
“How’s everything down at the Depot?”
“Huge run on power tools.” Jeff sipped beer. “I think everybody’s getting the do-it-yourself bug all at once. Watching all those HGTV shows, I guess. Big sale. Moved a shitload of circular saws.”
“Sounds like they keep you busy.” David shoved his hands into his pockets.
“Sure.” Another sip of beer. “What about you? Keeping busy? Around the house, I mean.”
David smiled tightly. In the last three days, he’d replaced missing bricks in the chimney, fixed a dripping bathroom faucet, installed a ceiling fan in the den, painted the garage, removed a stump from the backyard, took apart and cleaned and reassembled the lawn mower, put up Dora the Explorer wallpaper in Anna’s room, replaced a sputtering garbage disposal, changed the oil in the Escalade, and reread a dog-eared copy of Ice Station Zebra. So yeah. He’d stayed busy around the house.
David rocked heel to toe. “Oh, you know. The usual.”
“Right.” Jeff tossed back the rest of the beer. “Well, you know, it’ll pick up.”
Right.
Amy emerged from the house, Elizabeth right behind, the two sisters hovering in a cloud of chatter and family gossip. Glad-handing and cheek kisses and two minutes later, the Escalade glided north on the interstate into the city.
Amy checked her makeup again in the visor mirror, decided she’d finally achieved the desired effect, and shut the makeup case with a snap. She tucked it back into her purse.
They drove without talking.
“You’re not going to do this all evening, are you?” Amy asked.
“I don’t know what you mean.” He knew exactly what she meant.
“The stony silence,” she said. “You know this is a big night for me.”
“I know.”
“So you can warm up a little, okay?”
“They’re your friends,” David said.
“You’re my husband, and I want you to share this evening with me. It’s important.” She flipped the visor down, checked her face again, flipped it back up again. “I mean, I don’t ask a lot. I leave you alone to do your own thing. It’s one night.”
“I know. Don’t worry.”
“I just don’t want you to do that thing where you make everyone you talk to feel irrelevant.”
“If you can’t say something nice, it’s best to say nothing at all,” David said.
“That’s what I’m talking about. Don’t do that. Talk about sports or cars or whatever guys talk about. Talk about women with big tits. I know you can be charming. I’ve seen you do it.”
“I have no recollection of ever being charming.”
“Trust me. We have two kids.”
David grinned. “Okay. But it’ll cost you. Later when we’re home.” He was still game even after the botched attempt last night. Maybe he’d get lucky. He was ever the optimist.
Amy giggled. “You drive a hard bargain, sir.”
* * *
David parked in the underground lot below the government office building across from City Hall. They took the elevator to the top floor where a wide reception hall was decked out with white tablecloths and waiters in black tie.
Our tax dollars at work.
But it was all for David’s wife—ostensibly—so why not?
Amy was immediately swarmed with the city’s most prestigious attorneys and judges, all who’d come to pay homage to the new deputy district attorney. She negotiated the tidal wave of suits, gold cuff links, and Rolex watches with practiced poise. She’d spent ten years learning the ebb and flow of this particular shark tank, and tonight was the big payoff. Monday morning would bring a whole new set of headaches to go with the new job.
But not tonight. This was a celebration, and David reminded himself to act interested. He was the supportive husband. In spite of his wife’s vote of confidence, he wasn’t really sure how to go about being charming, but for her sake, he’d fake it.
He nodded and smiled automatically as he was introduced to various lawyers and bigwigs, and his eyes took in the room. A door behind the bar, probably back to the kitchen. Another door on the west wall with a red EXIT sign over it. A row of French doors leading out to a wide balcony. The small door to the side of the main entrance probably led to a utility room or—
“Stop that,” she said quietly into his ear as she steered him toward a table with rows of champagne glasses.
“Stop what?”
“You’re looking past everyone again. I bet you don’t even know who I just introduced you to.”
“Circuit Court Judge Myron Greenburg, Assistant D.A. Pete Howard, Gray Starling, senior partner at Starling and Doyle—”
“Okay, okay, stop showing off.” She nodded to the waiter behind the bar to pour her a glass. “I have a present for you.”
“Good. I like presents.”
“That’s the mayor across the room over there,” Amy said. “I need to speak with him.”
“And that’s a present for me how?”
“It’s a present because I’m not going to make you go with me to talk to him.”
“It’s like Christmas multiplied by my birthday.”
“There’s more.” She reached into her purse.
“More is good,” David said. “People say less is more, but I don’t buy it.”
She pulled out a cigar wrapped in cellophane, handed it to him. It was his brand, an ACID Kuba Kuba.
One of his eyebrows went up. “You know I limit myself to one a week.”
“Special occasion.” She grinned and gestured with her chin toward the balcony. “You can hide out there.”
He kissed her on the cheek. “Say hi to the mayor for me.”
“Yeah, right.”
David unwrapped the cigar as he headed for the balcony, pausing to bum a book of matches from the bartender.
The night was cool and the balcony deserted in spite of the dazzling view of the city all lit up at night. Maybe all the lawyers and fat cats had grown numb to it. David went to the far end of the balcony before lighting the cigar. He didn’t want any smoke wafting back inside and disturbing anyone. These days, one had to escape to the dark side of the moon to find a quiet place to light up. David was glad it was only an occasional indulgence. He puffed quietly, enjoyed the view.
Three minutes later, a pretty young woman in a bright red cocktail dress emerged from the reception, spotted him, and walked fast toward him, stiletto heels clicking on the tile.
She pulled a cigarette from a silver clutch. “Do you have a lighter?”
“Matches.”
“That’ll do.”
He handed them to her. She lit the cigarette, stepping back, arms half crossing as she blew out a long silver stream of smoke. She watched the smoke drift away on the breeze, as if creating a gray cloud were the point of smoking.
“My dad says you used to be able to smoke anywhere. Like in Mad Men.” She was maybe twenty-two, pretty in an obvious way, blond hair and blue eyes. “Now you always have to hunt around for a place. It’s not fair really.”
“Yeah.” So much for the dark side of the moon.
“It’s getting crowded,” she said. “I think every lawyer in the state is in there.”
“Yeah.”
They chatted like that until she got near the end of her cigarette, David mostly nodding along. She was a recent college graduate, a law clerk. Her name was Wendy and her life story was an open book. Way too open. She was about to light another cigarette and launch into chapter two when her date arrived.
“Hey, babe, where you been?”
David remembered him immediately. Amy had introduced him as Carter Franks, a brand-new junior partner at a prestigious law firm across town. He wore an expensive suit and a bright garish tie pulled loose. Gold rings on the fingers of both hands. Manicured nails. A little gray was just creeping into his hundred-dollar haircut. He didn’t have a hard look about him, but he wasn’t in bad shape. Tennis or squash maybe.
When Carter spoke, he gestured with a large tumbler in his left hand, ice clinking and Scotch sloshing over the top. “I wanted you to meet some of the guys from the office. We’re all thinking of heading to O’Malley’s after the—”
He stopped abruptly, blinking at David. “Who’s this?” He looked at Wendy, then at David and back again.
“We’re just talking. He let me use his matches.” Wendy held up the cigarette as proof.
Carter blinked again, focused. “Oh, yeah. The house husband.”
David didn’t bat an eyelash, but something in him tensed. Wendy took half a step back, like a field mouse suddenly aware she’d been standing in the shadow of a falcon without realizing it.
“Did he tell you about his sweet deal?” Carter asked Wendy. “He gets to sit home with his feet up while his wife slaves in the law mines. Talk about having it easy.”
David smiled tightly, slowly brought the cigar to his mouth, sucked in smoke, and let it out smoothly.
“That’s happening a lot, I hear,” Wendy said, a clumsy attempt at diplomacy. “I mean, in this economy and everything.” Her desire to be away from the conversation was so palpable, that you could slice it and serve it on toast.
“Yeah, but it doesn’t hurt to marry up, huh, pal?” Carter winked at David. Like they were old friends.
David maintained the smile. “I guess I did all right.”
“Sure.” Carter slurped Scotch. “I’ll be thinking about you on Monday when I’m slaving away at my desk.” He turned to Wendy. “Don’t worry about me, babe. I’m a provider. I got to make myself an attractive catch for girls like you.”
He slapped her ass with a loud smack. She laughed nervously, trying to play it cool, but the embarrassment showed.
“Let’s go.” He took her by the elbow. “Seriously, come meet these guys.” He tossed a condescending glance back at David as he departed. “Take it easy, pal.”
“You too.”
David finished the cigar, forcing himself to smoke slowly. When he’d smoked it down to a stub, he calmly tapped it out and placed it in a potted plant when he couldn’t find an ashtray or trash can.
He cast a final glance at the cityscape. The view seemed drab now. Maybe it had never been very special at all.
He went back to the reception, face blank, walking slowly.
Amy found him immediately. “Well, I hope you enjoyed that smoke. I’ve just been talking to a couple of state reps who tell me … what’s wrong?”
“I’m fine,” he said too quickly.
She put a hand on his arm, squeezed, and David felt the tension leak out of him.
“I’ve talked to everyone I need to,” she said. “Let’s get out of here.”
“It’s your party,” he said.
“And it’s boring,” she said. “Let’s go.”
He smiled his gratitude. She paused only a few times on the way out to exchange pleasantries. Soon they’d made their escape and were in the elevator heading down.
Amy’s cell rang just as the elevator doors opened to the underground parking garage. She looked at the number and tsked. “I’ve got to take this.”
She put the phone to her ear, used a finger to plug the other ear so she could hear the call better. They walked that way through the parking garage.
Amy spent a lot of time like that these days. Phone in one ear, finger in the other.
From the side David heard, “—talk to me like that, you bitch.”
“I’m taking a taxi, Carter!”
He saw Carter and Wendy standing next to a sleek Mercedes three rows over. They continued to argue as David took Amy around to the passenger side of the Escalade, helped her in, and shut the door. Amy stayed on the cell the whole time, chewing over some tedious office matter with one of her assistants. He deliberately didn’t look at Carter and Wendy as he circled back around to the driver’s side and climbed in behind the wheel.
David cranked the Escalade. He adjusted the rearview mirror to look back at the scene and saw Carter grab Wendy by the elbow.
David opened the car door again.
Amy shot him a look. Where are you going?
He gestured, It’s okay.
David approached Carter, keeping it slow and nonthreatening.
“You’ve been nothing but a stuck-up bitch all night!” Carter was red-faced, spitting when he talked.
She was trying to pull away. “Let go!”
When David got within ten feet, Carter spotted him and let go of Wendy’s arm.
“How are we doing over here?”
“Mind your own business, house husband,” Carter said.
“Let’s all take it down a notch.” David stopped when he was within four feet of them. A cloud of Scotch hit him so hard it almost made his eyes water.
“Walk away. This is between me and her.”
“It’s early,” David told Wendy. “I’m sure you can still get a cab out front.”
“Yeah. Okay.” She turned, walking away fast, the stilettos echoing through the garage.
“Oh, now, come on,” Carter shouted. “What the fuck?”
“You might want a cab, too,” David suggested.
“You might want to fuck yourself straight up your own fuck hole.”
David laughed.
Carter threw a sloppy punch, and David stepped in closer, blocking and catching Carter’s wrist, pulling it down against his body. He put his other arm around Carter’s shoulder, just as Wendy turned back to watch the scene, mouth gaping. The question on her face was almost comical.
“Carter’s just had a bit too much to drink, that’s all.” With David’s other arm around Carter’s shoulder, it looked like he was holding the other man up. “Isn’t that right, old buddy?”
David dug his thumb into a nerve cluster at the base of Carter’s wrist.
Carter winced. “Yeah. Yeah … right. No problem.”
“You have a good night,” David called.
Wendy nodded, turned and left.
“You fucked up, man,” Carter said. “I will sue your fucking—”
Carter swallowed the words as David dug his thumb in again, new pain lancing up Carter’s arm.
“I wouldn’t talk about suing,” David said. “Maybe there’s plenty of litigation to go around. Maybe a young law clerk named Wendy works in your office and now has a sexual harassment suit on you.”
He could tell by Carter’s face he’d hit the nail on the head.
“I’m just guessing,” David said. “I’m no lawyer, so I don’t really know. But my wife’s the new deputy district attorney so maybe you could ask her about the rules.”
He felt Carter wilt in his grasp, the fight going out of him.
“Or maybe in between watching soap operas and eating bonbons, I’ll get bored and mention this to her,” David said. “Or maybe I won’t. I haven’t decided yet.”
“Hey, it’s cool,” Carter said. “You’re right. Too much to drink and I got out of hand. I can see that now. No worries. I owe the lady an apology, right? That should put an end to it.”
The lawyer had emerged. Plea bargaining.
“Right.” He let go of Carter, stepped back. “I’ll bet your friends are still up at the party. Maybe one can give you a ride.”
Carter nodded but didn’t leave his spot. He looked like a two-year-old kid who had been scolded by someone else’s mother.
“Okay, you have a good night.” David turned and walked calmly back to the Escalade without looking back.
He got in behind the wheel, buckled his seat belt, and counted to five. He looked in the rearview mirror. No sign of Carter.
“Look, we’ll figure it out Monday,” Amy said into the phone. “It’ll keep until then.”
She closed the phone and looked at David. “Where did you go?”
“Oh, just checking something out. No big deal.” He put the SUV into reverse, backed out of the space. “Let’s go get the kids.”