Brooklyn Gothic, page 17
He only did so now when the officiant asked them to put their hands together.
He took her hands and what she saw in his eyes shot an indescribable sensation straight through her. It was like terror she saw. He was a man going down on a plane, a man about to be crushed by a hurtling boulder.
“Samuel, do you take Cassilda to live together openly and honestly in the covenant of marriage? Do you promise to love her, comfort her, honor and keep her? For better for worse, for richer for poorer? In sickness and in health, forsaking all others and be faithful only to her for as long as you both shall live?”
He didn’t need to say anything, but she waited for it. It levitated, torturing her.
“I can’t do this,” he said, making it real. “Casey, I’m so sorry. I just can’t. This doesn’t feel right.”
At the exact moment she heard the words, she would not remember what he looked like. But the words. She would never forget them. A scream gathered in her throat, swelling it to triple its normal size. But it refused to budge out.
The periphery of her vision, which had been a mucusy glob of people, focused into sharp relief, and they were all watching her with the bright alertness of a cat stalking a rustling behind the stove. She thought she saw Miss Brock take a step or two forwards, as if to approach her, or him. She thought about unleashing words of blame on Miss Brock, putting it all on someone, but her words were trapped somewhere in her head.
Him she couldn’t see. He had receded into something shadowy and pale and dangerous. She ripped her hands from his and was running, down into the narrow, winding, leafy pathways.
The movie vision of a bride hoofing it away from her ceremony was not lost on her, even to how she had to gather up the folds of her dress to keep from tripping. A pancake of light flared out over the sky, a rolling crackle followed, and a few beads of rain plunked on her forehead.
At the street, she headed south, the stares of joggers, bikers, and pedicab drivers puncturing her. Tugging out her tulle veil, she hurled it onto a knobby black mini-mountain of horse dung, and then mowed down her styled curls with her fingers.
Clutching her shoes in her hands, she walked past the Boathouse, past a trio of acrobatic teens ejecting over each other like cannonballs, past Little League teams and clomping carriage horses, until she hit Sixth Avenue. At the subway entrance, she realized she’d left her purse, with her wallet and phone inside, at the castle. The entrance was unmanned, so she gathered the skirt of her gown into a fist and plodded over the turnstile.
A compassionate spirit sent a train quickly. Inside, there were no double or triple seats to accommodate the rude spread of her dress. No one offered to move.
Clinging to the overhead bar, she stared at an advertisement with a picture of an old woman with scared bowling ball eyes and under her, the words, “ROBBED... by her nephew.”
Several stops later, she thawed and the tears came.
An outcast. A rejected bride on the F line. Then the ultimate cliché, the outer limits of indignity, mascara drooling down her face. And him! No one would notice a man in a tux sauntering away from the scene, no humiliation to trail him like kicked-up dirt. No one would notice a man in a tux!
“Do not block the doors!” the train conductor ordered. The scolding comforted her, reminded her that people were blocking doors. A normal thing to do.
What a gift the city’s oblivious citizens were giving her, letting her bleed on them, heads in their tablets or books, eyes half-closed, consumed with their music and games, paying her no mind. She wished someone would snap her picture, put it online, show the world. She could appreciate the art of it.
One day, she’d nod and say, yep, that was me, the tearful near-bride on the F. She’d have become famous of sorts. Not napalm girl famous, but a curiosity. One doesn’t see a crying rejected bride on the subway too often. But she felt more like napalm girl, scorched and running from a man-made atrocity. His atrocity. His atrocity he saunters away from in a tux no one will notice!
Oh yes, the photo would become sort of famous. If people asked about it, people at a party, let’s say, she’d tell them she’d had a foreboding during the ceremony. She’d tell them how she regretted letting him make the decision. He always got to make the damn decisions. He got to do the asking, he got to do the unasking. He never once asked her about any of the asking.
One of the party guests would inquire if she knew what had happened to him. “Hardly!” she’d say, with a shrug, carefree.
By then, it would all be like a dream. By then, it would be one of those quirky things that happened in life. A party story. She had the best party story. Who knew someone would take her photo and put it online? Who knew she’d become famous of sorts? (Her gut twisted when she remembered there had been a photographer at the ceremony, one who’d probably taken her picture at the moment she was dumped.)
What she wouldn’t tell her fellow partygoers is that, since the night before, she’d known things had shifted. In bed, Mr. Foster hadn’t soldered his skin to hers in his usual way, fastening her so tight to him she’d feel cramped and would wait until he was asleep before inching distance between them.
No, last night, he’d slept near her, but not nearly on top of her. They hadn’t made love, the first night they hadn’t since she’d moved in. But last night, she didn’t want him either. She couldn’t be vulnerable with him, make the same noises he and those women had.
She’d been worn to an emotional nub from their talk, fatigued from the heavy effort of blocking out those writhing bodies and those sex sounds and a too close viewing of a past that had been only a cloudy shroud on a distant shore.
In the morning, she’d wanted to reach for him and reassert their bond, bring back the man she knew. But she wanted him to stake his claim first and he didn’t. In fact, he’d gotten out of bed and before she could talk to him, the doorbell was clanging. Miss Brock and the wedding coordinator were on the step, insisting she come upstairs.
She’d thought it was the video. That he was ashamed. But now she thought the video could have triggered an explosive yearning for his past life. Maybe he didn’t want to risk dying without again experiencing a rich, candy box assortment of female bodies.
Could this be who he was after all? The possibility brought a rush of coppery saliva into her mouth.
Without a phone or any way to get money, she could think of nowhere to go but the mansion. She sat on the stoop, vaguely plotting to break in through a window.
He would come back there. Unable to stomach seeing him, she crossed into Prospect Park and took off her shoes, the train of her gown lollygagging on the surface mud of the dirt path. The rain was thin, she saw it but didn’t feel it.
The path emptied into her old neighborhood and she headed to the bar she used to frequent with Astrid. She didn’t know if it would be open this early, but she needed familiarity. Relief poured through her when she pulled on the big wooden door handle and it swung out. Inside, she recognized the regular bartender, preparing for a crowd that hadn’t yet arrived.
Spreading her gown over the bar stool, she said, “Joe, I got dumped at the altar and have no money.”
“Anything you want,” he said, with the unflappability of a man who’d heard it all.
“I don’t know. Something strong.”
He poured a clear and pungent liquid that stung her nostrils as it hit the glass, and she downed a little, the fumes expanding behind her eye sockets.
“I’ll pay you back,” she said, hoarse from the shock of hard liquor.
“No worries.”
This was it. She was done with him. Done.
34
Her head was plugged with woolly rags, her throat gristly with thirst. At first, she remembered none of it. She remembered none of it for a long time, minutes even.
Then a feeling of dread washed through her. She struggled, waiting for her brain to catch up with the sour sinking in her gut. It started in teasing flashes—walking out of the park in her dress, coming to the bar. Singing to the jukebox with a couple of strange men. Dancing. Had anyone paid her bar tab?
Bobbing up from the murk, chunks of memory. In a cab. Someone had been in it with her. Her stomach clenched. Who had she been with? Crying in the cab, pushing him. The cabbie doing nothing as Mr. Foster waved money through the plastic partition.
Out of the cab. Taking off down the street. Being picked up. She had screamed at him, hit him on the back.
In the mansion. On a couch. Crying and rocking.
My darling, my angel. Please!
Go away!
On the bathroom floor. Spinning, spinning, sick to her stomach. Locking the door. Running the tap water. Him there, somehow inside, holding her hair, kissing her face.
How dare you do that to me.
I haven’t loved anyone before. I didn’t know what it was!
Casey tried to staunch the flashes and let her mind sink into a sponge of blankness. As she slipped into a twilight sleep, part of her brain remained on autopilot, scanning for memories, like a computer.
I’m so sorry.
Why do you keep hurting me?
Because I love you.
That’s not love!
She didn’t know when she drifted off or how long she slept for, but when she awoke again, the room was a shade brighter, and the sulfur yellow light around the curtains communicated it must be late morning at least.
Temples panging, she tried to orient out of her low-grade spinning. Where was she? Clarification came: His bedroom. He was next to her, his breathing deep and scratchy. Alcohol-raggedy breathing. She was sweaty and claustrophobic, as if wrapped in cellophane, and realized she was still in her wedding gown.
How had he found her at the bar? What had they said to each other? Had he explained anything?
I can’t do this. This doesn’t feel right.
She shakily uprooted herself and looked down at him. One leg was tossed over a dune of bedspread, his mouth slightly open, upper lip wet.
Water. She needed water. That’s what had awakened her, dreaming of water, gulping it down. She dreaded the long walk to the kitchen. But she needed water so badly there was no more pushing it aside.
Schlepping down the hallway, it occurred to her Miss Brock might be in the house, though that seemed impossible with all of the noise they’d made last night, with their explosions of crying and fighting. She ducked into the spare room, contorting herself to work the back zipper of the gown and peel off the humid silk, leaving it humpbacked on the floor. On went a pair of loose, cropped pants and a t-shirt.
In the kitchen, she filled a large glass with tap water and drank it all down in desperate gulps. She was filling another when she heard her phone. Having no clue where it was, she followed the bouncy peals until she reached the drawing room, but the call cut off.
The white silk bridal purse lay abandoned on a chair and it caused her a stab of pain to look at it. If it weren’t for the need to get her phone, she wouldn’t have been able to touch it. She dug out her phone and pressed the top button, surprised to see her message icon had “8” in the circle—she’d missed eight calls. Her battery was in the red.
She saw the calls were all from Astrid, except one from her mother, who no doubt wanted to know how the wedding had gone. She’d deal with her mother later, needed time to come up with a story.
He and I decided to slow it down, Mom. You were right.
You decide this on the wedding day, Cassilda Maria?!
Ugh, she couldn’t think about talking to her mother today. She didn’t want to talk to anyone. No one had been in favor of this, and they’d all been right. What a fool, fool she looked like.
The ding of a voice mail came in. She looked at the caller—Astrid again.
She walked outside with her phone, careful to close the door, and sat on the stoop. Wouldn’t you know it, the day was beautiful, sun glistening everywhere. But rain had been more appropriate for such a hellish non-wedding anyway. Her need to vent edged out the desire to hide what had happened from everyone. She pressed the call back button for Astrid and it rang once before her friend picked up. “Yes?”
“Hi.”
“Uhh!” A dramatic gust of relief. “I thought it might be him again. Where are you?”
“I’m home. I mean I’m at his place.”
“What the hell is going on? I’ve been up all night practically. He said he couldn’t find you and remembered my name and thought I might know where you could be. I called Kate and Mia but they’re on some island. I told him to try Prospect Park. He said he walked all around it.”
“Well, he found me.”
“Were you at The Hungry Hog?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s the other place I thought of. I told him maybe we should call the police, but he said no, you’d just gotten into an argument and he couldn’t find you. He was so vague. I kept calling but never heard back.”
“He didn’t tell you he dumped me at the altar?”
“What? No! Oh my God. Yesterday was the wedding. I totally forgot.”
“Left that part out, did he? Convenient. I hope he paid the bar tab. Least he could do.”
“What do you mean dumped you at the altar? Are you serious? Case! That dick!”
“Right before the vows, he said it didn’t ‘feel right’ and he couldn’t do it. Right there in front of everyone, his lawyer and his nanny. Never marry a guy who lives with his nanny.” Her hangover prevented her unleashing the full force of her anger, her throbbing temples insisting she not jostle them with yelling.
“What is wrong with that dude?” Astrid yelled for her. “He is so lucky I don’t live there. I know this one guy from the club. I can have his legs broken. I think he’d do it for free.”
“Maybe it’s about his health, the aneurysm. But I thought that’s why he wanted to get married.”
“Do you know his health is so bad? Have you called any hospitals? Why are you just believing this dumb story?”
Casey focused her attention on the abundance of morning birds tweeting and squeaking in the purple-leaved deciduous tree at the foot of the stoop. She tried to let her resentment drain out of her so she could think more clearly.
“I’ve seen his migraines,” she said. “His whole body shakes, he starts sweating. He can’t be that good of an actor.”
“So he gets migraines, lots of people do. Doesn’t mean he’s dying!”
“Astrid,” she said, impatient, “you can’t call hospitals and ask if someone was treated there. There are privacy laws. And why would he lie about something like that? For what reason? And for so long?”
“Some guys like to play games,” Astrid said, confidently. “Maybe he gets off on it. I met a lot of these rich dudes when I was doing the hostess thing. Some can be real messed up. They have issues. Come on, you’re a reporter. When are you going to start doing some reporting?”
Casey sat with the phone smooshed into her cheek, nodding.
The videotape. She couldn’t bring herself to tell Astrid about it. What an imbecile she looked like trusting him after seeing it, after hearing him admit he used to do something like that. She should have cancelled things when he’d given her the chance. Yet, at the time, she’d felt his explanation made sense, and she believed him when he said he wasn’t like that anymore and never would be again.
Maybe this is what Miss Brock been trying to tell her. Had he abandoned another woman at the altar in the past? Maybe he’d done it to more than one, had a warped compulsion to rush women down the aisle and leave them dangling there.
Casey’s insides gnarled with mortification. How many things she’d let slide because she’d fallen in love. She’d heard love was blind, but didn’t quite know what it meant until now, or what it meant didn’t apply to someone with her common sense. How had her mind, her convictions, gotten so tangled up, moved so far away from the person she’d thought she was?
“What are you going to do?” Astrid asked. “Do you want to come out here? You need to get away from that guy. Something is really off with him!”
“Thanks,” she sighed. “But I have to see my parents. They’ll need to know what’s going on. What a scene that will be. My mom was totally against this.” She stuck her thumb into one throbbing temple, suffocating the persistent beat of it. “All I know right now is I need to get out of here. I love him but I can’t deal with this anymore. He needs more than a neurologist, he needs a psychiatrist. A whole battalion of them.”
It bubbled up, spilled up and out of her mouth like an overflowing stove pan. A panicky instinct to spread her location and his identity.
“You should have this. His name is Samuel Henry Foster. He lives at 555 Sterling Avenue. Write it down. Are you writing it down?”
“Case, what—”
Her phone went dead.
She watched him on the bed, sound asleep, still with his lung-dredging breathing. Then she spotted it—the orange bottle of prescription medication on his bedside table. The cap was off.
Startled, wondering if he’d taken too many, she crawled to him and pushed on his shoulder. When that didn’t roust him, she snapped him on the cheek with her hand.
His head lolled and he made a gargling noise. She picked up the bottle and examined it, heart in her throat. There were still pills there, plenty of pills. How many did he take?
She thought about her phone, charging. It would take awhile to charge to the point where she could make a call. The landline. She’d seen him use it in the library to call his driver. Did she need to call an ambulance?
“Samuel!” she yelled into his ear.
He grunted, his dark eyes popping open, but not focusing. Then he looked at her with a shuddery convulsion. “What are you doing?”
“Are you all right?”
He brought his hand to his head and flinched. “I was until you decided to scream in my ear.”
