Garden of Lies (60 page)

thinking of his marriage, wishing he could deflect whatever was wrong there as simply as he had

this guy’s knife.

Now Cowboy was drawing away with an embarrassed grunt, and shuffling off toward the exit

with a couple of his buddies. The one-legged black man had disappeared.

“Take it easy!” Brian called after him. But Cowboy didn’t look up.

Then Brian felt a gentle touch against his shoulder. He turned, and there was Rose, her black

eyes huge and luminous, her expression soft.

“I’d forgotten, how you used to break up all those fights out in the schoolyard,” she said. “You

haven’t changed, Brian. One of these days, you’re going to hurt yourself trying to keep somebody

out of trouble.”

He shrugged. “These guys ... it’s like they’re walking hand grenades. It doesn’t take much to

pull their pins. They’re not really out to hurt anyone.”

“But people get hurt ... even when you don’t mean for them to.” He thought he saw a shadow

flit across her handsome face, then she ducked her head quickly, slipping her arm into his. “Shall

we get that coffee now? I think we could both use it.”

A short while later, sitting across from each another in a red vinyl booth at the City Diner on

Twenty-third, Rose sipped her coffee, and said, “I think I understand now ... what you were

talking about tonight ... about how it is with a lot of these guys. A few months ago, I had a client.

He’d killed a man for cutting him off on the Jersey Turnpike. All that rage over such a little thing.

It didn’t make sense to me then. Now it does.”

Brian had an urge to reach across the table and touch her hand, but he fought it. Steam rose

from the white mug in front of her, making her face shimmer like a mirage.

“The anger is only part of it,” he said. “There’s also the guilt. You saw so many of your

buddies die over there, and you wonder why
you
got the brass ring. What makes you so special.

And when [363] you keep coming up blank on that one, you begin to think maybe you aren’t

special at all, that maybe you
did
deserve to die.”

“Is that how you felt?”

“For a while. But I’m over it now. It helps a lot to talk about it. I got most of it out of my

system when I wrote the book. Listen, you want something to eat with that? A burger, some pie?

The blueberry’s not bad.”

“No, thanks. I’ve seen the portions. Trucker size. It’d take me all night and a shovel just to get

through one piece.” She smiled, leaning forward slightly. “Are you working on anything now?

Another novel?”

“When I have the time. It’s ...” Brian hesitated. Should he tell her? The new book was based on

his own boyhood, growing up in Brooklyn in the fifties. And she was so much a part of it. “... too

soon to say what it’s about. Right now there are more pages in the wastebasket than on my desk.”

“Oh, Brian ...” She leaned across the table, smiling that radiant smile, lifting him two feet off

the seat of the worn leatherette booth. “... I
am
happy for you. Really. I guess I also came tonight

because I wanted the chance to tell you I’m sorry about what happened in London. It was ... the

shock of seeing you there. I wasn’t expecting you. Okay, I was angry, hurt, but it never stood in

the way of my being proud of you. I always knew you would write a wonderful book someday.”

“You must have had a crystal ball. I wrote some pretty awful ones before this.”

She laughed. “I remember. Still, bad as they were, you had a certain ... well, flair. How many

heroines get trampled by elephants, gored by a rhinoceros, strangled by a python, and still have

energy left over to play badminton?”

“That wasn’t as bad as the hero who came back to life in my murder mystery because I forgot

I’d killed him in Chapter Two.”

“Face it, Bri. You weren’t cut out to fill Mickey Spillane’s shoes.”

She started to giggle. Then he caught the bug too, and nearly choked on his coffee. All at once

Brian felt the years slip away. He thought of hot summer nights with Rose out on the fire escape,

the smell of bagels wafting from the Hot Spot deli on Avenue J. The [364] two of them munching

on green grapes, and smoking Pop’s Lucky Strikes. And Rose, showing him all those crazy card

tricks. Christ, things had been a lot simpler back then. A time before Vietnam, when the thought

of reaching thirty seemed as impossible as dying. He wanted this feeling to go on forever.

“What about children, Bri? I know you always wanted a family. ...”

It was as if he’d been flying up in a swing, carving great swooping arcs in a crayon-blue sky,

and suddenly the swing had been snatched out from under him.

“We’re trying,” he said. “No luck so far.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s not hopeless. Just damn frustrating. I wanted a big family. Now I’d settle for

one.”

“Your wife ... I’ve read about her clinic.” Rose tactfully changed the subject. “It’s wonderful,

what she’s doing for that neighborhood.”

“She’s a dedicated woman.”

In some ways, he thought, Rachel and Rose were two of a kind. They both had a kind of inner

fire, but in Rachel it was scattered in every direction. She was out to save the world. Rose’s fire

was slower, hotter, more focused.

Brian thought of that night in London, the way she’d looked at him. She was looking at him

that way now, her dark eyes fixed on him, unwavering, with that quiet Mona Lisa smile he knew

so well. Oh Christ, he wished she would stop ... stop whatever it was that was making him feel

something he shouldn’t.

“That man, at the party,” he asked. “Are you going to marry him?”

“Max?” She looked startled, and her cup wobbled as she brought it to her mouth. Some of it

splashed on the back of her hand, and she quickly mopped it up with a napkin. Brian saw the

jagged white scar creasing her palm, and winced inwardly. “Now look what I’ve done. Don’t you

remember, Bri, how I was always falling off my bike and skinning my knees? Well, I haven’t

changed a bit. Just last week, I—”

‘He’s in love with you.”

Her cheeks flushed with color. “Don’t be ridiculous. Max is [365]
...
well, Max. I couldn’t get

along without him, but we’re just ... oh, this is silly, why are we discussing him?”

“Why not? Aren’t you in love with him?”

“No, of course not. Anyway, Max is married.”

“Oh. I see.”

Her flush deepened, an angry mottled red. She dropped her eyes. “No, you don’t. We’re not ...

it’s not what you think. Max has been a wonderful friend. There was a time ... a very bad time,

after you ... well, let’s just say Max was there for me. I doubt I would have made it through law

school, either, if it hadn’t been for him.”

Brian thought,
Either you’re a very bad liar, or a fool. I saw the way he was looking at you

that night. I’d have had to be blind not to.

It was clear, though, that whatever the truth was, she didn’t want to know it. He had no right

poking into her business, anyway.

“I’ll bet you’re a damn good lawyer,” he said. “I’d like to see you in action one of these days.”

“Don’t say that.” She smiled. “You might get your wish. Max always says that lawyers are like

morticians—we all need one sooner or later, but better later than sooner.”

“He sounds like a smart man, your Max. I’d like to meet him one of these days.”

“One of these days,” she echoed, tracing a pattern in the rings of moisture on the stained

Formica tabletop.

Brian saw her profile reflected in the plate-glass window. There was something so brave and

forlorn in that ghostly image, like a tintype he had of his great-grandmother, Mary Taighe

McClanahan, who by the age of twenty had crossed an ocean and lost two babies.

Then Rose straightened, and glanced at her watch. “Oh God. Look what time it is. I’ll be up all

night. And I have to be in court first thing in the morning.”

“Now I know why Perry Mason had those bags under his eyes.”

She laughed, and touched his hand briefly, a whisper of warmth. “It’s been good seeing you

like this again, Bri. I mean it. I want us to stay in touch.”

Brian thought,
I should stop this right now. She’s still in love with me. I should put an end to it,

tell her it’s no use. It can’t lead anywhere.

[366] But he couldn’t bring himself to say those words. Instead, he felt a crazy, furtive urge to

see her again.

“We’ll have lunch. Soon. I’ll call you.”

“Promise?” She rose to leave, lingering a moment, her eyes searching his.

“Promise, cross my heart, hope to die.”

Sitting there after she’d gone, he remembered the promise he’d made to her years ago. A

promise he’d broken. He shouldn’t do that to her now, all over again. But now, either way, he’d

be hurting her.

Do you still love her?
Whispered a hard, cool voice inside him.

Did he? The truth was, he didn’t know. He would always love her, in one way. But was love

ever that simple? One thing and not another? Defining how he felt about Rose would be like

trying to cut a piece out of the sky.

Walking into his apartment on East Fifty-second Street, Brian was surprised to find it dark. It

was nearly midnight.

“Rachel? You home?” he called softly, switching on the overhead light.

No answer.

The jumbled shadows of the living room assembled instantly into a bright, reassuring picture.

A good place,
Brian thought. He took it in with renewed appreciation, the rumpled chintz sofa

with its fallout of plump embroidered cushions, an old pie safe with punched tin doors, a pine

table beside it, piled now with bound galleys publishers wanted him to endorse, a sheaf of book

reviews sent to him by his editor.

And that crazy Adirondack chair by the fireplace—they’d picked it up in Maine the first

summer they were married. Brian smiled, remembering how, after poking around in that old barn

full of junk, sneezing and filthy, Rachel had stumbled upon it, nearly hidden behind a pile of

rusty bedframes stacked against the wall. She had dragged it out, then walked around and around

its hulking carved frame, examining its bear-claw feet and bear-head arms. Then she pronounced,

“It’s the most hideously wonderful thing I’ve ever seen, and if we don’t buy it I’m going to kick

myself all the way home.” The old farmer who ran the store was no hick, no sir, he wouldn’t

[367] take less than thirty dollars, practically a fortune in those days, and nearly their entire

budget for the weekend. But Rachel had insisted, and they’d lugged it out to the car, roping it into

the trunk. Driving home along the Interstate they’d argued about where it would go. Rachel

wanted to make it the centerpiece of their living room; he’d thought it would be best hidden off in

some dark corner. But when they’d finally gotten it home, and cleaned it up, yes, he’d seen how

perfect it was. How unique and wonderful. One of a kind, like Rachel herself.

Brian had that funny little catch in his throat he sometimes got looking at old family snapshots.

Pictures of his mother when she was young and slim, before her hair turned gray; pictures of his

brothers perched on their tricycles.

It got away from us somehow,
he thought.

Something brushed against his leg. He bent down and scooped a big yellow and white calico

into his arms. “Hello there, General Custer, holding down the fort for me, were you? Or just out

looking for a late-night snack, you old freeloader.” General Custer began to purr loudly, a sound

like a rusty bandsaw. Rachel’s cat, really, but he was democratic about some things. He would let

anyone feed him.

In the kitchen, Brian dug a foil-covered can of cat food from the back of the refrigerator, and

forked the smelly mess into Custer’s bowl by the radiator. He stood for a moment, looking out the

window at the bright necklace of the Queensboro Bridge strung across the river, then noticed the

asparagus fern in the basket on the windowsill. It looked yellow, brittle. He felt the soil with his

finger. Bone dry.

He filled a water glass at the tap, and dumped it over the fern. This place was beginning to

remind him of those apartments locked up for the summer, their occupants off in Nantucket or

Fire Island. Except it wasn’t summer; it was only April. And they weren’t on vacation. He

couldn’t remember the last time they’d taken even a weekend off.

It even smelled closed up, dry and musty, like a blanket taken out of mothballs.

But now he smelled something else. Smoke. Cigarette smoke. A little alarm tripped inside his

head. Rachel used to smoke, but she’d quit years ago.

[368] Brian followed the smell down the hall. He found Rachel curled in the big padded maple

rocker by the bed. It was dark in here too, the sodium arc lamps on the street below casting a

purplish black-light glow over the room. Brian saw that she wasn’t asleep ... but then she wasn’t

quite awake, either. The cigarette in her hand was burned down to the filter, and there were ashes

scattered over the crocheted afghan lumped about her knees. She was staring off into space, her

face white and oddly still, and there was a look on it that caused a rash of goosebumps to crawl

up the backs of his arms.

The face of battle fatigue, he recalled.

“Rachel?” he called softly, almost whispering her name. “Honey?”

He’d never seen her like this. Christ, what had happened?