Dreams of Jeannie and Other Stories Part 20

"Why didn't you just shoot Larry?" Michael asked. He was trying to edge away from Faith, hoping to attract the attention of someone on the deck.

"Get back over here," Kevin said quietly. Michael did as he was ordered. "I only wanted to talk to Larry about the terms of the trust. But he turned on me, just as he turned on Carlo. He lunged at me. I was only defending myself."

"Then why are you attacking me?" Faith asked.

"Because I don't want to be connected with any of this. With Larry out of the way, I'll be named trustee, as long as there's no sign of foul play. I'm sorry to threaten you, and if you'll agree to keep your mouth shut, maybe we can work something out," Kevin said.

"I don't think I can promise that," Faith said.

"Of course we will," Michael said at the same moment.

"Around the corner," Kevin said, prodding Faith with his gun.

She had barely taken a step when something thunked into Kevin's head, knocking him to the ground.

"Good shot!" Michael called.

A fat blue book was splayed on the ground not far from Kevin, who was already beginning to sit up. The gun had fallen from his hand, and Faith kicked it away from him. Then she looked up to see Bobby waving at her from the second floor window.

"I'm a witness!" Bobby shouted. "He threatened you with a gun! I'm a witness!"

The crowd surged around Faith and Kevin, only stepping back when a man with a badge flashed his way through.

"I'll need statements from everybody," he said.

The statements took much of the night.

By the time the detective told Faith, Michael, and Bobby that they could leave, they were exhausted. They rode in silence to Faith's apartment.

Michael let the car engine idle while Faith gathered her energy for the short walk.

"I'll buy you a new ephemeris," Faith said. "And thank you for your help."

"You're welcome," Bobby answered.

"I still don't understand how you managed that throw."

"I played high school football, Faith, and I still play in an occasional pick-up game on Sat.u.r.days. And I was lucky."

"Lucky," Faith said. "Yes. All those astrologers were arguing about what was in whose chart, and stopping Kevin came down to a lucky throw."

"Actually, Sophia explained it from Kevin's chart while you were talking to the detective," Bobby said. "It didn't have anything to do with Pluto. It was something about Neptune."

"Well, knock me over with an ephemeris," Michael said.

"Don't ever say that again," Faith told him.

"Goodnight."

Many Happy Returns I had originally wanted to write a novel about this woman, a novel of a twisted road to redemption after time in jail. But then I wasn't certain I wanted to live with a murderess with post-traumatic stress disorder for the length of time it would take me to write an entire novel. So here's her short story.

The woman stood with her toes on the edge of the cement, as far as she could get from the wire gate without stepping onto the asphalt drive. Her body was angled as if she were willing it to leave the spot.

She shifted restlessly from one foot to the other, uncomfortable in her shoes, the heels higher than she had grown accustomed to wearing. In other shoes, she might have started walking. She wasn't certain how much longer she could stand and wait, patiently and quietly.

The road in front of her curved and headed downhill less than a quarter of a mile from the fence. She closed her eyes briefly, to rest them, then focused again on the curve, not wanting to miss the first glimpse of the car. The sun was too bright. She wished she had asked for dark gla.s.ses.

"Are you sure she's coming?" the guard called.

The woman glanced back at him and nodded.

"I could make a phone call for you," he added.

"No." The woman said it too softly and had to try again. "No, thank you. I'm certain she'll be here."

"Do you want to wait inside?"

"No. No, thank you."

G.o.d, no. She didn't want to wait inside.

The sun outside was no brighter than the sun inside had been, she knew that. No warmer, no different in any way. Nevertheless, she was beginning to feel a fragile power from standing in its light, its too-bright light, and going back inside, even for a moment, even to cool off in the shade of the guardroom, would erode that little bit of strength.

For much of her life she had been powerless, never more so than in the last year. But now it was over.

A drop of sweat extended the dark circle under her arm, and she tugged at the lilac silk blouse, trying to keep it away from her skin. She had gained weight, overeating inst.i.tutional food, and it was too tight now. The light gray slacks had barely stretched around her waist when she put them on early that afternoon, once she had finished packing the few belongings from her cell.

Food had been the only sensory pleasure available to her for more than a year. But that was about to change. Soon.

A black bus with a sheriffs insignia on the side came rolling up the hill, and a surge of adrenaline forced her back from the driveway, almost to the fence. The shadow of the bus skirted her feet. She looked up to see the bus pa.s.s through the parking lot, watched the gates open, then swallow it up.

Dark streaks rose from the silk around her waist to touch the ones falling from under her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She searched in her purse for a tissue to blot her face, but she hadn't thought to include one.

The black bus had brought her up the hill a year ago. She had a sense of shifting reality at the curve in the road, even before the bus reached the gates. The stench of the other women in the bus, a combination of alcoholic sweat and poor hygiene, had been so overwhelming that she almost vomited. Since then her nose had become less sensitive.

She tugged at her blouse again, trying to make it fit, trying to keep the dampness away from her skin. It was over. Kickout day, she reminded herself. She had survived the year.

The scrub on the hill had turned yellow again in the September sun. She had watched it through an entire cycle of seasons, waiting for this day.

The sun was almost hidden, the dry hill beginning to darken, before the car she was expecting nosed around the curve. She recognized the silver BMW 325i even before it slowed, then stopped, in front of her.

The engine kept purring.

No one got out.

The trunk lid flipped open, and she heaved the suitcase in, fighting the urge to slam the lid back down. She closed it as softly as she could.

The door on the pa.s.senger side was locked. She had to wait for the driver to let her in. She arranged herself quietly, fastened her seatbelt. The blast from the car's air conditioning made her shiver. The damp silk stuck like glue.

She had to touch the surfaces-the silvery gray leather of the dashboard, the gray plush of the seat. She thought about closing the louvered vent but didn't do it. She would get used to air conditioning again.

"I'm sorry I'm late, Lynn, but the freeways were jammed."

The woman in the driver's seat kept both hands on the steering wheel as she said it. She looked straight ahead as she pulled away from the curb.

Lynn. Annie was the only person who had called her Lynn for months, ever since the last of her former friends stopped visiting. She had been Marilyn in the jail, not Lynn.

That was something she would have to decide, whether she wanted to be Lynn or Marilyn. She had a lot to decide, really, although most of the big decisions were already made, had been made a year ago so that she hadn't had to think about them in jail. She wondered if she could ever possibly be Lynn again.

She looked at Annie, the woman in the driver's seat, and decided not to bring up the name question. The ident.i.ty question. Annie hadn't been perspiring, and her clothes fit, and her auburn hair had been cut by someone with a license.

Annie, her sister, who didn't want to look at her.

The BMW smoothly completed the circle of asphalt and headed back around the curve, down the hill.

Marilyn-she discovered that she thought of herself as Marilyn-leaned forward, watching for the first house. When she saw it, white stucco with red tile roof, just as it had been when she had ridden up the hill in the sheriffs bus, she realized that she had been holding her breath, afraid too much had changed, in just one year, for her to even recognize a house.

She wanted desperately to see something familiar in this decaying neighborhood of graffiti-covered garages and boarded-up gas stations. All she saw was one frail, ragged, brown-skinned man pushing a frozen fruit cart. She would have to wait.

They paused for the light at Eastern. Annie glanced at her, then moved into traffic and signaled for a left onto the freeway.

"There are a few things I need to tell you," she said. "The family has decided against a celebration. We felt it would be awkward."

"Celebration?" Marilyn realized that she had forgotten to think about what would happen when they reached the house. She had spent her first months in jail training herself not to think beyond the moment. It was only during the last week that she had allowed herself to remember the future. She hoped she hadn't lost the ability to plan ahead, the thing that happens to people with frontal lobotomies.

"Your birthday."

Marilyn shut her eyes.

"I'm sorry-I really am." Annie's voice rose. "Turning forty has to be rough under any circ.u.mstances, and this-"

Marilyn could feel Annie's struggle for control, but she couldn't find the energy to help her. She had to conserve her energy to hold onto that tiny bit of power she had received from the half hour of waiting in the sun. She leaned her head against the window. Her window. This was her car. Two years ago it had been her birthday present.

"It was all I could do to convince Karl that you should have dinner and spend the night with us. I'm sorry, I really am," Annie repeated. "I'll help you find another place to stay tomorrow."

"I'm not sure I can find a place in one day," Marilyn said. She wasn't ready to tell Annie, but she had another place to spend the night, a night that had been planned a long time ago. She remembered that-she had remembered it a lot the last few days, remembered that she had something to look forward to. She could feel the blood surging in her veins, and she was glad her face had been already flushed from the heat, so she didn't have to explain. "Debbie and Buddy will probably want to stay close to the school, and there aren't that many rentals in the area."

"That's another thing." The other thing had to wait until Annie was in the right lane for the Hollywood Freeway. "You don't need to find a place for three. Debbie and Ross have decided that they want to stay with us, and Karl and I are happy to have them. So is Meryl. She likes having her cousins living with her. We all think it's the best way to go."

Marilyn froze at the name Ross. Then she realized that Annie was referring to Buddy-her son, not his father. She couldn't think of her son as Ross. And Annie didn't know that she wanted a place for four, not three.

"Why? Why is it the best way to go?"

Annie concentrated on her driving.

"Why?" Marilyn repeated.

"Come on, Lynn. You know why. You murdered their father. They haven't forgiven you for that."

Murder. Both the word and the coolness of Annie's voice jolted her. It wasn't murder, Marilyn thought. It wasn't murder. It was voluntary manslaughter with the special circ.u.mstance the lawyers call extreme emotional disturbance. Everyone had agreed to the plea bargain. She opened her mouth, but there was nothing she wanted to say to Annie about it.

Annie glanced at her stiffly, reprovingly. Annie had probably expected her to cry, she thought, would have been happier if she were crying, but she felt too relieved to cry. Ross was dead, after all, and she was free.

"Maybe I should stay in a hotel," she said. Saying it was easier than she feared. "I need to talk with Debbie and Buddy-need to explain to them. I could do that tomorrow. But maybe tonight I should stay in a hotel."

"Okay. If that's what you want. Where?"

"I'll let you know. Someplace where they will take care of me. Someplace where I can get a facial and a manicure and a ma.s.sage." Did the Chateau Marmont have a spa? She wasn't sure. If not, she could take care of those things tomorrow.

"I don't think that will help you with Debbie and Ross," Annie said. "They're looking for signs of remorse."

Remorse. Marilyn had to think about remorse.

"I'm not sorry Ross is dead." She searched for the right words. "I know you want me to say I am, but I'm not. I am sorry I couldn't come up with a means of getting away from him that didn't include bashing his head with an iron sculpture. But I don't think about that night anymore. I haven't thought about it for a long time."

She had a flash of memory, of Ross, naked, throwing her down on the bed. Then another flash of Ross covered in blood, and a surge of joy. That was enough. She turned back to Annie.

"What did you think about?" Annie asked. "You spent a year in a cell. What was more important?"

Marilyn was startled by how angry Annie was. What did Annie have to be angry about?

"I didn't think about the past. I survived, that was all I could do. I wish we could go back to where we were, though. You and I. Can we be friends again?"

"We can't go back to where we were as long as Ross is dead."

"I didn't do very well, did I? Letting you know what it was like?"

"What what was like? Marriage to Ross? What's to understand? That he screwed around? That he had too much to drink a couple of times and threw you against the wall? I can understand that. s.h.i.t happens, and Ross was a bright, funny guy, but he wasn't always a nice guy. So if you had divorced him, I would have been with you every day in the courtroom while you fought for custody and child support. That would have made sense. Murdering him didn't."

"Voluntary manslaughter," Marilyn whispered. She would have said more if she thought Annie could hear.

"They could have had you on second degree, but n.o.body wanted the trial, least of all Ross's partners. Ask Karl. They just wanted the scandal to go away before it ruined the firm. Temporary insanity would have been even better, but the DA's office wouldn't go for it." Annie's face twisted. She concentrated on changing lanes on the freeway, then continued more softly. "People can't just kill people, d.a.m.n it. We live in a society that's falling apart, and it's all because people kill people."

"I'm sorry you were hurt." Marilyn was tired of apologizing, and she stifled an urge to respond with anger of her own. That had been a useful skill in jail, stifling anger. It was one she had acquired as a child, and she had only lost it that single time with Ross.

"Unintended consequences," Annie said. "We all have to live with the unintended consequences of what we do."

"You're making it sound simpler than it was-divorcing him. What you don't understand-what I don't know how to explain-is how powerless I felt. Until I picked up that small iron torso and hit him. He looked so stunned-so incredulous-so amazed that I might fight back-that I had to hit him again. And then when he was lying on the floor-when he was powerless-I hit him again."

"Stop." Annie's face had turned white. "I don't want to hear this. Please just sit quietly until I can get you to a hotel."

"But this is my car. Did you forget? I didn't. This is my car. I'll leave you at your house. And call you tomorrow. We can talk then."

"Oh, G.o.d. You think you got away with it. One year in county jail wasn't punishment. You think you got away with it."

Marilyn was silent. They were leaving the freeway on Highland, skirting the edge of Hollywood to get to Hanc.o.c.k Park. She wanted to see the buildings, the people, the trees.

Annie turned the car onto a street with houses set back from the street, houses with landscaped grounds. She paused in front of a gated driveway.