The Guest Room (13 page)

“Revisit?” he asked the lawyer. “Do you have any idea how long you want this leave of absence to be?”

“No. Let's wait and see.”

“Can I talk to Peter? I mean, tell him what really happened?”

“I told you, I'm calling for him. For the whole management team.”

“I understand. But can I call him as a friend? Just talk to him?”

“You shouldn't. Please don't talk to anyone at the firm.”

“Look, I can't go home. The police won't let me. So, I was planning on going to the office this afternoon and doing some work. God knows I have plenty to do.”

There was a pause at the other end of the line as Hugh gathered himself. Then: “No. You can't go there. You're barred from the office.”

“I'm barred? You make this sound punitive!”

“It's in everyone's best interests.”

“Look, it should be pretty empty. I would just—”

“No.”

“No? You're serious?”

He cleared his throat. “I'm serious.”

“Who's going to handle—”

“Whatever it is, it will get done. No one's irreplaceable.”

“Do you know who we're targeting this week? Do you have any idea what companies I am negotiating with to—”

“Yes. I know everything. We've already reassigned your work.”

It was a short sentence, but it was a body blow.
Reassigned your work.
But once he had absorbed it—his mind reeling with the names of his associates and the people he managed who were going to be taking over his (his!) responsibilities—he only grew madder.

“I've got things there I want!” he said. “In my office! Can I at least go there and get them?”

“Like what?”

“Like what? It doesn't matter like what. My office isn't a crime scene. It's not like there's some sort of investigation into something I may have done at the bank. I…I want my things!” He realized he sounded infantile, but the words were spilling out now like coffee beans from the bulk food dispenser at the natural foods market. This was madness.

“If you could name some—”

“I don't have to name a goddamn thing!”

“You're upset. I understand. But—”

“Can't I talk to Peter?”

“I said that would be inappropriate.”

“No, you didn't. You just said no.”

“Richard—”

“Don't
Richard
me in that tone! We don't know each other that well. Wait: we don't know each other at all!”

“We can ship you whatever personal items you want. Family photos. Plaques. Paperweights. We will be happy to ship that sort of thing to your home.”

“Plaques. Paperweights.”

“Of course.”

“This is degrading.”

“So was your party on Friday night.”

“Hugh?”

“Yes?”

“Be a human. Let me retrieve my stuff. I won't take any files. I won't take any papers. I promise.”

“I shouldn't. I really shouldn't. But since you asked like a human, fine. I will meet you at the office. Is four-thirty okay?”

“Where do you live?”

“It doesn't matter where I live.”

“For God's sake, I wasn't threatening you. I was asking to see how much of an inconvenience coming into the office will be for you.”

“I live on Long Island.”

“Then four-thirty is fine. You're doing me a favor, so I won't be a jerk and say that's too late in the afternoon. Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“You're going to have security with you, aren't you?”

“Absolutely.”

“Fine. See you at four-thirty.”

“And Richard?”

“Yes?”

“Since you're coming in, why don't you bring your keys and ID card? You can turn them in this afternoon. It will save us all a little trouble in the next few days.”

When he recalled the conversation, he thought he had shown admirable self-control not wrecking his cell phone by heaving it against the hotel room wall.

In the end, Kristin decided that brunch would be best. Sarabeth's. A few blocks from her mother's. After that, Richard would have to return to his exile at the Millennium. They met at eleven-thirty, Kristin and Melissa rendezvousing with Richard near the restaurant's awning on the northeast corner of Madison and Ninety-second Street. There were two tables available, one rather light and cheery near the window, and one in the back corner. The sun was out for the first time in days, and it was clear the hostess wanted to seat them at the front, where they could bask in its warmth. Richard surprised her, asking for a table in the rear of the restaurant. He allowed himself a brief moment of self-pity: this is my future. A life in the shadows. Hiding. Shamed. But it passed when he realized that he really did have his wife and his daughter with him. He rallied, especially when he glanced down and saw that Melissa was wearing the new skirt and tights he had picked out for her yesterday.

“They look great on you!” he said, hoping after he had gushed that his pathetic need for approval and forgiveness wouldn't lessen him in her eyes. But, of course, he did need her forgiveness. And she would, he feared, forever think less of him anyway.

“Thanks. They're pretty funky,” she said, and he tried not to read anything into how simply normal her voice sounded. He kissed her on the forehead and then Kristin on the cheek. She didn't turn away. He tried not to read too much into that, either, but it gave him a small measure of hope amid the hopelessness that might otherwise swamp him.

“You must be hungry,” he said as they glanced at the menus. “I know I'm famished.”

“I had a croissant a few hours ago,” his wife murmured. She didn't look up from what she was reading.

“And I had cereal,” Melissa added.

“Well, all I've had is coffee, so I'm starving. I will be the goop who licks fingers and knives and both of your plates.” He peeked over the top of his menu and took inordinate satisfaction from his daughter's small smile.

“How's the hotel?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Fine. It's a hotel. I wasn't all that far from the theater where you saw the puppet whales.”

“I like hotels. You should have ordered room service. I love room service.”

“I should have, right?”

“Yup.”

“How's Cassandra?”

The girl rolled her eyes and folded her arms across her chest: “Weirded out.”

“Is she eating?”

“Uh-huh. But she jumps from one piece of furniture to the next. It's like the carpets are quicksand or something.”

“Where did she sleep?”

“I don't know.”

“But not with you or Grandma?”

“Nope. Grandma thinks she might have slept on the high shelf in the coat closet.”

“The one in the front hall?”

“Yup.”

“Well, with any luck she can go home soon. We all can.” He turned toward Kristin, but her eyes were still riveted to the menu. Abruptly she looked up and for a brief second he thought she was looking at him, and he felt almost giddy with relief. But he followed her gaze and understood it was only that the waitress had returned and was standing behind him. Over his shoulder. She was about to ask if they would like coffee or tea. Her hair was as black as her dress, and her eyes were the reassuring brown of freshly tilled soil. Her voice was chipper. She was, he guessed, in her early twenties. After she had taken their order—he and Kristin both ordered cappuccinos, while Melissa was having hot chocolate—he turned back toward his wife. Now she was staring at him; he couldn't decide if she was disgusted or merely bemused. He raised his eyebrows, waiting.

“I used to think I understood men,” she said. “I don't. Or maybe I just overestimated all of you.”

He nodded. He parsed the code: she thought he had been checking out the waitress and was irritated. “Wasn't thinking what you thought I was thinking,” he told her, hoping he sounded playful and not defensive since Melissa was present.

“What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking about coffee versus cappuccino,” he said. He wanted to tell her that he was no more aware of his surroundings—including the people—than anyone else. Yes, he thought the waitress was pretty, but he took no more notice of her than he would have if the person taking their order had been male. He registered what she looked like; that was it. He swiveled his body in his seat and focused on their daughter: “Tell me more about the musical,” he said. “Tell me all about the whales.” It was probably going to be impossible to make this brunch…normal…but he was, he decided, sure as hell going to try.

As they walked as a family the few blocks back to her mother's, Kristin finally broached the question that she had shied away from at brunch because Richard was trying so hard to make the meal pleasant for Melissa. She was grateful for his efforts; she wished she had had it in her to do the same. “Will you talk to that detective today?” she asked.

“Patricia?”

“Yes. You call her Patricia?”

“I'm not sure I have ever called her anything. If I phone her—which I assume is where this conversation is going—I expect I will call her Detective Bryant.”

She noticed a family strolling toward them: a family of three with a son who was probably nine or ten. They looked so happy, Kristin thought. The parents were smiling at something their son had said. She tried not to be jealous, but she pined for that sort of casual joy. She missed the experience of communicating with her husband without sarcasm, anger, or wariness—or (worse, perhaps) depending upon Melissa as a semaphore. How was it possible they had had that only two days ago?

“If you'd like,” Richard was saying, “I will call her. And, yes, I'll ask her when we can go home.”

She considered correcting his use of the plural pronoun, but that would only be bitchy. They could discuss when he should return home later. By phone. When their daughter wasn't walking beside them. “That would be great,” she said. “Thank you.”

“Of course. There is one more thing.”

She almost stopped walking. Instead she succumbed to superstition and took a long, careful step so that her foot did not land on a sidewalk crack. “Okay.”

“Well, it's good news. I can seriously help whatever cleanup team we bring to the house—whether that's tomorrow or Tuesday or, I guess, even Wednesday. The bank wants me to take a little leave of absence. But I'm fine. It's all good and it makes sense.”

“How long is a
little
?” she asked. The news didn't knock the wind from her the way it might have before the bachelor party. Before two men had been killed in her house. Before her husband had taken an escort upstairs, stripped, and…

She pushed the thought away.

She knew this was devastating to him and he was putting a brave spin on this for her. Like most men, he was what he did. He was an investment banker. He worked hard. He liked his job. He probably liked (And what was the right noun? How could she have been married to him for so many years and not know?)
banking
more than she did teaching—and she enjoyed teaching a very great deal. At least she did most of the time. She turned toward him and tried to see the hurt and the fear (because surely this scared him) behind the facade. And she did see it in the way his lips quivered ever so slightly when he tried to smile, and she could see it in the way that he blinked.

“I don't know,” he said. “But we'll figure it out. Not long. I mean that: not very long. And the good news? I'm getting paid. And I like the idea of getting to go home before the two of you and working with the cleanup crew. I'd love to make sure that the house is in tip-top shape so that when you walked in the door you'd never even know what happened.”

She thought of what he had told her about the couch. And the painting. She thought of the bodies in the living room and the front hall. He was, she understood, kidding himself. They'd always know what happened. Always. Still, she reached for his hand as they walked. It was a reflex. They walked the last block to her mother's in silence, but holding hands. When they arrived, she nodded at the doorman.

“Are you going to be okay?” she asked Richard.

“Of course! Don't worry, we'll be fine. Remember, I'm still getting paid.”

“It's not money I'm worried about. It's you.”

“Well, I'm fine, too. I mean it.”

She rather doubted he was, but she wasn't going to press him. She simply reminded him to call her once he had spoken to the detective—or whoever at the police station could tell him anything. She watched him kneel and hug Melissa. She accepted another kiss from him on her cheek and his hands on the waist of her jacket. Then she waved good-bye and led their daughter back upstairs to the apartment. She was, she realized, unmoored by his touch. But she was also unprepared to have him beside her in bed.

As Kristin was falling asleep that night in her mother's guest bedroom, her daughter beside her, she replayed in her head her conversation with her brother. They had spoken by phone that evening after dinner.

“You should be glad he told you that he went upstairs with the girl,” he said. “I think a lot of men would have lied. They would never have told their wives anything.” She was relieved that her brother hadn't donned his therapist superhero cowl and asked her how she was feeling.

“But did I really need to know?”

“You said you asked him. He didn't lie.”

“Or maybe he did. Maybe he did have sex with her.”

“Okay, then. As you just asked yourself: Did you really need to know? Maybe he was sparing you. He was drunk, it was meaningless. So he dialed down what really happened. He told a white lie.”

“That's not a white lie.”

“Look, I know this sounds awful, but sometimes if you screw up the way some people do in a marriage, it's best to keep whatever you did to yourself. Especially if it's a onetime thing. Does your partner really need to know? Not always.”