Garden of Lies (25 page)

his share of that poison at home with Pop. He’d kept fairly quiet, too. Better they think him the

shy type than make a fool of himself.

Then someone initiated a game of Truth or Dare, and suddenly there was Amanda, giggly

drunk, wriggling out of her slacks and top, then streaking in her bra and panties across the dew-

soaked lawn toward the pool. The others were either too drunk or too bored to go after her. Only

David, afraid she might do something really stupid, like jump in the pool and drown, had run

after her.

He caught up with her in the moon-shade of a giant mulberry tree a hundred yards or so from

the pool. Out of breath and moist with perspiration, she collapsed laughing into his arms.

He took her on the wet grass, not surprised to find she was a virgin. Not surprised, either, when

she wrapped her legs about him and bit his shoulder, crying out in muffled delight.

The next day he approached her as she was strolling down the gravel path to the tennis courts,

racket slung casually over her shoulder. Her thick blond hair was caught back in a ponytail, and

she was wearing a pleated white tennis skirt that flipped up in back when she walked, exposing

the twin crescents of her sweet white ass where her panties had ridden up.

[141] When David moved his hand down her smooth brown arm, trying to kiss her, she pushed

him away with a disgusted look.

“Look, let’s just get one thing straight,” she hissed, first looking around to make sure they were

alone. “Whatever happened last night didn’t happen, and if you say it did—if you breathe a word

of it to
anyone
—I’ll scream bloody murder and say you raped me. My father is an attorney, and a

son of a bitch besides. He could get you fired and probably arrested. And I don’t think you want

that kind of trouble, do you?”

Without this job, he’d have no money in the fall for books, clothes, haircuts. Not to mention

the risk to his scholarship if she decided to stir up trouble. Hell, he hadn’t been working his butt

off playing Stepin Fetchit to these rich assholes to see it all go down the drain over some stupid

bitch with hot pants and a short memory. She wasn’t worth it, not by a long shot.

What hurt was realizing she’d seen through him all along, that he really wasn’t good enough.

She’d enjoyed him, briefly and a little guiltily, like a girl on a diet sneaking a candy bar. Now she

was simply throwing away the wrapper.

David had taken one long last look at her, engraving this moment of humiliation in his memory

so he would not forget. And he never had. Even now, with the cold rain stinging his face as he

dashed to make the green light, David could recall that exact spot on the sunny gravel path where

the boxwood hedge had become overgrown with honeysuckle, the lazy hum of bees, the far-off

droning of a power mower. But trying now to picture her face, all he could see were the twin

images of himself reflected in her sunglasses, minute, insignificant.

But that kid had been Davey Slonowicz from Jersey City. A month before going back to

Princeton, he had it changed legally to David Sloane.

And David Sloane was no chump. Just the opposite.
He
chose the women, and he called the

shots. And if it was time for an affair to end, goddammit,
he
would be the one ending it.

So damn Rachel Rosenthal to hell. To think he’d almost been taken in by her, almost made a

real fool of himself. Yeah, she had gotten to him, scratched her way down inside him somehow.

He thought of this black chick he’d been seeing, a nurse with a gorgeous pair of knockers and

kinky tastes who liked it up the ass. Christ, [142] he’d even find himself thinking about Rachel

while he was fucking Charlene. And he’d never done
that
before. Shit, no wonder he was feeling

so damn shaky.

David saw the light go red on him as he reached the corner before the subway entrance. Fuck

it. He started crossing anyway, shrugging at the blare of horns, the glassy squeal of tires braking

on wet pavement. Two running strides, and he was at the opposite curb, leaping over the lake of

filthy water that fanned out from a stopped-up storm drain.

Running—David felt as if he’d always been running. At first from his father.
Sure, you got to

become a track star early when your old man is a drunk, to get out of the way fast before he

slams your face in for any number of federal offenses, like forgetting to tie your sneakers, or

turning the TV up too loud, or just plain being in his way. Miller time. Weekends, after a hard

week behind the welding torch, was always Miller Time in our house, a case of beer chilling in

the fridge, another case stashed in the front hallway closet.

After six or seven beers—David remembered learning to count them the way a condemned

man on death row counts his last minutes—Dad would go from boozy good cheer to junkyard-

dog mean.

Hey, Davey, you a fuckin’ fairy or something? Nose always buried in a book. You think you’re

too good for your old man, that it? Huh? Well, let me show you a fuckin’ thing or two you may

not have learned from all those books. ...

He’d had to learn to run; his senior year in high school, he’d come in first in the statewide

cross-country championship. Nearly straight A’s, too. Almost 800 on his SATs. A full

scholarship to Princeton. He’d had his lonely days at college, feeling like he didn’t belong, but

then he’d found a bunch of guys, and from then on Jersey City was ancient history. It was as if he

were saying to the old man,
Now let me show
you
a fucking thing or two.

And soon I’ll be out of this rathole hospital as well, he thought. I’ll set up in Morristown or

Montclair, or maybe Short Hills, where they have bucks, and all want at least two kids, and a

good OB, of course.
Their
kind, who talks nice and gives lollipops to their kids, and doesn’t get

annoyed when they call, with heartburn or gas, panicked they’re going into labor.

[143] Yeah, he’d be his own man at last, free. And he’d be goddamned if he’d let some cunt,

even a rich cunt, tie him down forever. Maybe in five years or ten years he’d be ready for the

house with the white picket fence, but not now.

David, making his way down the steps into the bowels of the IRT, thought of something and

broke into a sweat. Suppose she really went through With it? Then he
would
be a father, whether

he wanted to be or not. Somewhere out there would be a kid with his features, his blood running

through its veins. It would want things he couldn’t possibly give. And someday maybe it would

even hate him the way he hated his old man.

David was so shaken up by the time he reached the platform, he dropped his last token before

managing to fit it into the turnstile. He felt afraid of Rachel, like he used to feel afraid of his pop,

a stitch in his belly, a dry cardboard taste in his mouth.

Damn her, why was he letting her do this to him? Then he was remembering the morning

Rachel found a pair of black lace panties, probably Charlene’s, under his bed, and said nothing

about it, just smiled sweetly and disappeared into the kitchen to fix breakfast. By the time he got

out of the shower, she was gone. There was a place set for him on the table, a goblet of fresh-

squeezed orange juice, cloth napkin in a ring. And right on his plate, those same black lace

panties spread over a toasted English muffin. The note propped beside it read “Bon appétit.”

No, even though she’d turned on the waterworks like the rest of them, she was tough and

calculating too, cool as a chilled silver fork. And what if she dragged him down no matter what

he did? The way Pop had. David had wanted to move out, get away, from the time he was

thirteen, earning a few bucks of his own washing dishes after school for Muldowney’s. But

always, whenever he came close to just packing his bag and cutting out, he found he couldn’t.

Pop had a secret weapon, the thing that scared David the most: the old bastard had needed him

somehow.

David felt a rush of fetid air, saw deep in the tunnel the headlights of an approaching train, and

it was like his father’s breath in his face, those bloodshot eyes lit by a drunken fury closing in for

the kill.

Y’think you’re so smart, better’n me. But you’ll never get away from
[144]
me, Davey. And

y’know why? ’Cause I’m in you. Part of you. Every time you look in a mirror, I’ll be lookin’ back

at you. ...

Then there was only the thundering train, and the hard hammering of his heart.

David stepped in, sinking onto the hard plastic seat. He looked around, and saw a wino in a

filthy parka slumped right across from him, asleep. Not going anywhere, just keeping off the

streets, keeping warm. Disgusting.

But in a weird way, this bum made him feel good. He reminded David of how far he’d come,

of how much he had accomplished. He felt stronger. Whatever curve ball Rachel threw at him,

hell, he’d handle it.

“Hello, David.”

A woman’s voice, greeting him from the darkness of his living room. David’s heart sideslipped

like a car skidding off an icy road.
Who in the he
—

“Rachel?” He fumbled for the light switch.

Christ. Rachel, yes, but he wouldn’t have recognized her. She sat still and straight in the Eames

chair by the fireplace, hands folded in her lap, almost primly, like a very good child in school.

Another odd thing. It was the first time, come to think of it, he’d ever seen her in a dress. A pretty

one, too. Some kind of soft cotton, with a swirly pastel pattern, batik maybe. Her hair, which

usually floated in a soft gold-brown cloud—the color of saltwater taffy—about her shoulders,

was clipped back with a barrette, leaving her neck bare, white, and slender. He felt again the way

he had on the subway platform, scared, as if something bad were about to happen, and at the same

time, curiously aroused.

It was her eyes that spooked him most of all. Huge and dark, yet oddly vacant, like windows

with the shades drawn. Whatever she was feeling was behind there, leaving him out in the cold.

There was a bottle of Cuervo Gold on the coffee table in front of her, half empty. No glass, no

ice. Christ almighty. Rachel didn’t drink. A glass of wine and she was under the table. So here

she should be smashed, out cold, and she looked sober as a parson.

Watch it, buddy,
he thought.
We’re skating on very thin ice, here. Just watch your ass.

[145] “Mind if I join you?” he said, peeling off his sopping coat and tossing it over a chair.

Then he sat down on the sofa opposite her, every muscle in him tense, wary. He picked up the

bottle, looked at the label. “Would you believe this has been sitting in my cupboard since last

Christmas? A gift from my father. Every year he sends me one. I don’t usually drink, but it’s a

cold night out. A little snort might take the chill off.”

Jesus Christ, why doesn’t she say something, or blink an eye at least? What the hell is going on

here?

Then she stirred. He saw a shudder passing through her, and her gaze locking onto him. Cold.

Sub-fucking-zero. He could feel his balls shrinking up into his crotch.

Tipping the bottle toward his mouth, David noticed his hand was shaking. And down his arms

he felt goosebumps breaking out.

“Don’t,” she said. Quietly. Firmly.

But it was the look she gave him that made him lower the bottle.
Oh Jesus, her eyes.
Their

blankness had lifted, giving him a glimpse of something frightening inside her, something

terrible, a white heat burning blue at the center.

“I don’t want you drunk when you do it.” She spoke again, that same maddening tonelessness,

like the flat whine of a cardiac monitor after the patient has arrested.

He slammed the bottle down on the blond-wood coffee table, and some of the amber liquor

slooshed out onto his hand. He brought his knuckles to his mouth, sucking them dry, the sharp

tequila taste stinging his mouth.

“Do what? Jesus, Rachel, you’re scary, you know that? Sitting here in the dark like a goddam

spider. You could have called, let me know you were coming. Did you think I wouldn’t want to

see you again?”

He had to look away when he said it. The truth was he wished she were on another planet. He

wished they’d never met.

“I don’t care about that,” she said. “After tonight it doesn’t matter.”

“Mind letting me in on your frequency? What the fuck are you talking about?”

He wasn’t so scared anymore. Now he was getting pissed off.

“I mean I don’t care about us anymore. That’s over. I’m here about
it,
the baby.”

[146]
Oh Jesus. Oh Christ. Here it comes. She’ll say we should get married, in name only,

some bullshit like that, so it won’t be a bastard.

If he ever needed a drink, it was now. Fuck her. He tipped the bottle, letting the booze slide

easy down his throat, warming him all through.

Averting his eyes from her, looking about the room, he noticed how bare, stark really, it was.

He’d moved in—how long ago?—six, seven months. It had seemed like the next step up. Small,

on the dark side, but fantastic location—that always impressed women. Seventieth, close to