Looking for Laura, page 13
“I don’t want to take a walk. We already took a walk. We’re going to have to take another walk to get back to my car. I don’t even want to think about walking,” he said, then realized how petulant he sounded.
“Or,” Sally suggested, “we could take a ride on a Swan Boat.”
“Swan Boat?” Rosie bleated. “What’s that? I wanna go on a Swan Boat!”
Todd clamped his teeth together so the blasphemy rolling across his tongue wouldn’t escape. He did not want to go on a Swan Boat. He especially didn’t want to go on one with Sally and Rosie. Swan Boat rides were for tourists. They were pointless. They were corny.
“All right,” Sally was saying. “Let’s take a ride on a Swan Boat, and then we can come back and see if she’s returned home. That sounds like a great idea.”
It sounded like Todd’s definition of the Third Circle of Hell. It also sounded like Todd’s loss of his status as the commanding officer of this army. Sally was taking over once more. The next thing he knew, she was going to be singing songs about porcupines.
Or swans. Was there a song about swans on that stupid CD of hers? A swan song.
Shit.
Sally and Rosie were already bounding down the sidewalk in the direction of the Common. They were holding hands and skipping, like classmates in a schoolyard. After the Swan Boat ride, if Laura Hawkes still wasn’t answering her door, the two of them would probably draw a hopscotch grid on the sidewalk and play that for a while. And when that got old, Sally probably had a set of jacks in her tote bag. Or a couple of jump ropes. Or a hula hoop.
Sally didn’t look like a schoolgirl, of course. She was clearly a woman, her long hair swaying heavily under the brim of her hat, her hips shimmying with each step, the skirt of her dress swinging around her legs. She was skipping only because Rosie wanted to skip.
He realized that Rosie, not Sally, was running the show. Who was he kidding? He’d stupidly thought this trip was primarily for his benefit, secondarily for Sally’s. He and Sally were the ones who wanted to eyeball Paul’s mistress. Rosie had come along only because Sally had grown up in a trailer and wanted her daughter exposed to such exotica as street clowns and kitsch kiosks.
But somehow, Rosie had wound up in charge. She was the one who’d wanted to watch the damn clown and buy the damn necklace—and in both cases, she’d gotten her way. She was the one who’d sung along with both the animal CD and Nirvana. Now she wanted a Swan Boat ride, and she was going to get that, too. Like a eunuched slave, Todd followed silently behind her and her loyal handmaiden, otherwise known as Mom. Queen Rosie’s wishes were their commands.
If Rosie weren’t Paul’s heir, the sole creature through whom his DNA would survive into the future, Todd wouldn’t put up with this. It amazed him that Paul had put up with it. But then, Paul had had Laura to help him endure.
Maybe that was what Todd needed: a woman to help him endure. He dated, he socialized, he had sex less often than he’d like, but significantly more often than most septuagenarians, high-school students and in all probability his parents—but maybe he needed someone special. A woman who would write passionate letters to him, even if that passion was about as genuine as rhinestones. A woman who dreamed of his touch. A woman who would care enough to be indignant if she learned he was attached to someone else. The women he dated in and around Winfield…Somehow, he doubted any of them would throw a fit if they found out the relationship wasn’t exclusive.
The Public Garden loomed, lush with buds and early blossoms. The trees looked as if a painter had dabbed their slender branches with green, and spikes of tulip and daffodil pierced the warming soil. In the distance Todd saw the pond where the Swan Boats sailed. Rosie saw it, too. She let out a triumphant yelp and started running toward the pond. Why wasn’t she tired? Didn’t little girls need naps?
Accept the inevitable, he advised himself. Rosie wanted a boat ride, and she was going to get a boat ride. He’d ride with her, just to make sure she didn’t disappear again. It was one thing for a child to vanish amid a throng of fans admiring a clown, and another thing for a child to vanish while on a boat in a lake. Todd’s nerves could take only so much.
Sally announced that she wanted to ride on the boat, too—and that she would pay. Todd didn’t argue. Nor did he argue, though he desperately wanted to, when the boat operator pointed out an empty section on one of the bench seats and said to Rosie, “Now, you sit nice and still between your mommy and your daddy.”
She didn’t have a daddy, Todd reminded himself. She missed her father, even if her father had been an asshole. Todd could pretend to be her father for the duration of the boat ride.
Besides, if he told the boat man that he wasn’t Rosie’s father, the guy would assume Todd was Sally’s boyfriend. He definitely didn’t want anyone to make that assumption—even though when she removed her sunglasses, her eyes were as bright as Rosie’s, sparkling with joy over a stupid paddleboat ride. Even though the afternoon sunlight got caught in her hair below the brim of her hat and made it shimmer the color of new pennies. Even though, as she adjusted herself on the seat, the neckline of her dress shifted, drawing his eyes to her generous bosom.
Which he didn’t care about. He’d never been a breast man. Denise had been as slim as a supermodel, and he’d married her, hadn’t he?
Also divorced her.
Why was he thinking about Sally’s breasts? He was on a boat, with Rosie wedged between him and Sally and a park on the verge of exploding into spring all around them, hints of flowers everywhere, the scent of new grass and apple blossoms obliterating the stale odor of the city beyond the Public Garden’s borders. Might as well make the best of it. Might as well pretend he was Rosie’s daddy, the husband of a woman with substantial breasts.
After the boat ride, they stopped to admire a row of bronze sculptures depicting the mother duck and her babies from Make Way For Ducklings, a book Rosie had apparently memorized, given her involved explication of the plot. “We read it in school,” she said.
“This is the same school where you hit donkeys with sticks?”
“Not real donkeys,” she reminded him solemnly. “Real donkeys would kick you if you hit them.”
“There seems to be an animal motif running through your life,” he observed as Rosie hunkered down to scrutinize each bronze duckling. “Make Way For Ducklings, papier-mâché donkeys, animal crackers, those animal songs on the CD and now a Swan Boat ride. You know what you need?”
Rosie fingered her rice necklace and gazed at him. “A zoo?”
“A pet.”
Sally sent him a warning look, which he blithely ignored. “A pet what?” Rosie asked.
“I don’t know. Dogs are fun.”
“Do you have a dog?” she asked.
“No. But I had one growing up, and it was great. Every child needs a dog.”
Rosie turned to her mother. “I need a dog,” she said.
Sally’s expression, meeting Todd’s above Rosie’s head, turned from mild warning to dire threat. He knew if he pursued this discussion with Rosie, Sally would hate him forever. That seemed as good a reason as any. “A big, sloppy Saint Bernard would be fun. Or a pit bull. They’re supposed to have great personalities.”
“Stop,” Sally muttered, adding to Rosie, “He’s teasing you. Pit bulls can be mean.”
“Or you could get something exotic. An iguana, maybe. They’re cute little lizards.”
“They grow enormous,” Sally interjected. “They’re something like five feet long when they reach maturity.”
“Five feet long?” Rosie was so excited she pranced in a circle around one of the ducklings. “I want a—what’s it called, Daddy’s Friend?”
“An iguana.”
“An iguana. Can I have one, Mommy?”
“No.” Sally’s look evolved from merely threatening to outright lethal. “We can’t deal with a pet right now, honey. You’re in school and I’m at work. Who’d take care of the pet when no one was home?”
“He could take care of himself. We could train him. You know what I’d like?” She addressed Todd, who was clearly much more receptive to the idea. “A chimpanzee. We could train him to cook and clean, and then he could play with me and Trevor. And he could eat bananas.”
“Chimpanzees love bananas,” Todd confirmed.
“I think we’re done with this conversation,” Sally said.
“Or an ant farm,” Todd suggested. “Ants make cool pets.”
“I’ll bet,” Sally grunted.
“Do they farm? What do they farm?” Rosie wanted to know. “Corn? I have a book about farm animals, but it doesn’t have anything about ants in it.”
All the way from the duckling statues to Louisburg Square, Rosie questioned Todd about pets. They analyzed the pluses and minuses of gerbils, parakeets, tetras and tarantulas. And cats. Rosie finally decided the best solution would be for her friend Trevor to get a cat while she got a dog, and then when the cat and the dog grew up, they could fall in love and get married.
“A mixed marriage,” Todd said. “Why not?”
“We’re not getting a dog,” Sally announced sternly. “What time is it? Maybe we should go back and see if Laura Hawkes came home.”
“Does she have a pet?” Rosie asked, bobbing along between Sally and Todd, bouncing on the balls of her feet with each step. Todd decided the kid wasn’t so bad after all. Given how effectively she was irritating her mother, Todd wouldn’t begrudge her the boat trip or the necklace.
“We’re not getting a dog,” Sally repeated through clenched teeth.
Maybe that was why Paul had cheated on her—because she wouldn’t get a dog.
She was so earthy and artsy, though, Todd would have expected her to be a dog person. Or a cat person. Or a menagerie person, lots of animals, a row of bowls by the back door, half of them filled with water and the other half filled with kibble. He would have expected her to live in a house filled with that musty kitty-litter scent, and a parrot would sit on a roost in her kitchen, commenting on what she was cooking for dinner. “Bwaak! More tarragon! Bwaak! Down with tofu!”
They reached the town house on Mount Vernon Street, and Todd’s leadership juices once again began to flow. Rosie might rule the itinerary, but when it came time for action, Todd was the man.
He started up the front steps, but to his great annoyance Sally and Rosie accompanied him. No more adoring gazes from below. They crammed themselves onto the top step with him.
“I’ll do the talking,” he whispered as he rang the doorbell.
“Says who?” Sally whispered back.
“I don’t want to intimidate the woman.”
“I do.”
He wished he could intimidate Sally. “I really think it’ll be better if you let me do the talking.”
“Can I talk?” Rosie asked.
“No,” Sally and Todd said simultaneously.
The door opened as far as a safety chain would allow. The safety chain was brass, as shiny and yellow as the knocker on the door. The woman behind the chain was shadowy. Todd could see one suspicious eye; the door hid the rest of her face.
He rearranged his expression, losing the scowl he’d worn for Sally and attempting a benign smile. “Hi. I’m looking for Laura Hawkes.” He paused, tension creeping along his nerve endings as he waited to see if Sally was going to keep her mouth shut.
She did.
“Who are you?” the woman behind the door asked.
“I’m Todd Sloane. I’m a friend of Paul Driver’s. This is Paul Driver’s daughter, Rosie—” he gestured toward her “—and his wife, Sally.”
“His widow,” Sally muttered.
“His widow,” Todd corrected himself.
“Paul who?”
Surely the woman had to know the name. She’d sent a couple of dozen sentimental letters to him, after all. “Paul Driver,” he enunciated.
“He was a lawyer with Wittig, Mott, Driver and Associates, in Winfield, Massachusetts,” Sally supplied. “He did legal work for you.”
“Winfield? Oh my God. Paul!” The door slammed shut, then opened again, this time unfettered by the safety chain. The woman who filled the doorway was skinny, with streaked blond hair cut into an odd geometric shape. Her face was an assemblage of straight lines and sharp angles. She wore a tunic and gray stretch pants that emphasized her thinness. “Is Paul dead? How awful!”
She seemed genuinely upset. But not distraught. Not wrenched, not wretched, not mangled by the gears of tragedy. Of course, if she was Todd’s Laura, she would have known about Paul’s death for months and gotten past that stage of acute grief. His soul-mate lover would have wondered why she hadn’t heard from him, and she would have made some inquiries and learned her lover’s fate.
He just wasn’t…sure. He studied the woman standing in the marble-tiled foyer of her elegant town house, as slim and sleek as a model in a cigarette ad. Her breasts would barely fill a training bra, Todd noted. Why would Paul, a man who’d lost his mind over a buxom waitress, knocked her up and felt obliged to marry her, have an affair with a woman who had no bosom at all?
For contrast, maybe.
“You are Laura Hawkes, aren’t you?” he confirmed.
“Yes.”
“We were in town,” Sally explained smoothly. “We thought it would be a courtesy to meet personally with Paul’s clients here in Boston to let them know.”
“That’s so kind of you. Please—come in. I’m so sorry.” She turned to Sally and clasped her hand. She wore several rings, including a textured silver band around her thumb, and her nails were polished the color of scabs. “What a terrible loss. He seemed so young.”
“He was thirty-three,” Sally told her, removing her sunglasses with her free hand and doing a creditable job of appearing sad. “He was in a car accident.”
“I’m so sorry! Oh, I just—I’m shocked. Can I get you something to drink?”
Todd decided he was glad Sally had taken over the social obligations. It gave him a chance to size Laura up. Was she Paul’s sweetheart? She could be. Or she could be the world’s greatest actress, slicker than an oil spill. But if she was faking it, why would she have invited them in for a drink?
His ruminations were interrupted by the sound of scrabbling claws against marble, accompanied by a staccato yipping. A small furry creature bounded into the foyer and skidded across the polished floor. “A dog!” Rosie cheered.
Actually, it looked more like a large, hairy guinea pig. Laura Hawkes reached down and scooped the animal up. Its legs continued to churn for a minute, as if it thought it was still on the floor. “Calm down, Butch,” she murmured, stroking the beast’s scruff. It yipped some more.
“Mommy says I can’t have a dog,” Rosie complained.
Laura and Sally exchanged a look. Understanding? Hostility? Todd couldn’t interpret it from either direction.
“Would you like some juice, or tea?” she offered, still stroking the furball. “Or something hard, maybe. Jesus. Paul’s dead? We could all use something hard.”
“I want something hard,” Rosie remarked. Sally rummaged in her tote bag and produced a handful of animal crackers. Todd doubted that was what she’d had in mind. She might be only five years old, but he suspected she knew exactly what a hard drink was.
Laura pivoted on the cube-shaped heel of a pair of dangerously fashionable black shoes and started down the hall, beckoning with a jerk of her razor-sharp chin that they should follow. Todd tried to catch Sally’s eye, to see if she was as baffled as he was. She might have already figured Laura Hawkes out. She might have already deciphered the dimensions of the woman’s relationship with Paul. If she had, she didn’t share her insights with him. She didn’t even share a glance with him.
Lacking a better choice, he followed Sally and Rosie as they followed Laura. The hall was short, decorated with abstract paintings that looked vaguely obscene, and it led to a sun-filled kitchen at the rear of the town house. Laura lowered her pet to the counter, where he hovered anxiously, as if afraid to jump down to the floor from such a towering height.
The kitchen was a gourmet chef’s dream: granite counters, a six-burner gas range, a refrigerator as big as the closet in the spare bedroom of his condo. Laura Hawkes was most definitely rich.
So why had she hired a small-time attorney from western Massachusetts to handle her legal business? If she could live at one of the priciest addresses in Boston, if she could get her hair coiffed by someone who clearly used the most elite drugs, why would she have used Paul as her legal representative?
Not that he was a bad lawyer. But no downtown billionaire would travel all the way to Winfield to get her will written.
“Would you like some milk?” she was asking Rosie.
“No, thanks. I’d like something hard.”
“She’ll have milk,” Sally interjected.
The poor dear, Laura mouthed, her eyes brimming with enough pity to fill an ocean. Sally pressed her lips together sternly, whether because she didn’t trust Laura or because she didn’t appreciate her condescending sympathy, Todd couldn’t tell.
Laura filled a glass with milk for Rosie, who was distracted by the dog. She had to look up slightly to see it; it had to look down. They assessed each other. “He’s so tiny,” Rosie finally said. The dog was probably thinking the same thing about her.
“You can have a pastry too, if you’d like,” Laura offered. “Do you know what a pastry is?”
“She knows what pastries are,” Sally assured her. “She’s actually an expert when it comes to pastries.”
“I like blueberry scones best,” Rosie added.
“So, you were a client of Paul’s?” Todd was growing bored with the chatter about scones and dogs. Someone had to take charge of things, and once again, that someone was Todd.
“We bought a retreat up in Lenox,” Laura explained, swinging open her oversize refrigerator. “Paul was recommended to us as someone who could handle the purchase.”
“A retreat?” Sally asked at exactly the instant Todd asked, “We?”
“My husband and I.” She pulled out a bakery box and shut the refrigerator door with her nonexistent hip. “My husband is Vigo Hawkes,” she said, as if that was supposed to mean something.
