Good Intentions Page 16

  “That would be terrific,” Lynn told him gratefully, having left her house without any breakfast, and hoping to stick around as long as she could.

  “How do you take it?”

  “Black, thank you.”

  Keith Foster excused himself and went into the kitchen. Lynn read over the few remarks she had scribbled down, then let her eyes travel the width of the beautiful living room, trying to reconcile Davia Messenger’s accusations with the reality of what she saw, which was a home decorated with warmth and love, and an obviously doting, if understandably defensive, father, who was not altogether at ease here. Maybe it was just her presence. How would she feel if a stranger barged into her house and accused her of abusing her children? How would she react to a stranger assuming control of her life?

  Davia Messenger had lied to her about her husband. She’d made no mention of the fact that he had left her. Lynn tapped her pen nervously against her notepad, seeing Gary’s face in the reflection of the large back window overlooking the water. Perhaps that omission was understandable as well, she thought. Just as it was understandable that Keith Foster could not immediately recall what grade his daughter was in at school. Would Gary have been able to answer that question immediately? Gary had enough trouble remembering his children’s birthdays. He never got Megan’s right, and remembered Nicky’s only because it was so close to his own. Lynn reached for the enamel framed photograph of Ashleigh Foster. She certainly looked happy in this picture.

  From the kitchen she heard something fall and shatter, a low curse, and some quick shuffling. Lynn walked swiftly toward the kitchen, finding Mr. Foster on his hands and knees in the middle of the room, retrieving bits of fine pink-and-white china from the ceramic tile floor.

  “It slipped out of my hand,” he said sheepishly.

  “Here’s a piece.” Lynn picked up a small crescent of china peeking out from under the large, gleaming white refrigerator.

  “Patty won’t be happy about that. It was her grandmother’s. Been in her family for generations.”

  Lynn examined the delicate hand-painted sliver of china in her hand. “It’s lovely. Maybe it can be glued back together.”

  “Maybe.” He quickly poured her another cup. “Black, you said?”

  “Thank you.” Lynn took the cup from his outstretched hand, following Keith Foster out of the glistening kitchen. She’d thought kitchens only looked that good in the pages of Better Homes and Gardens. It dismayed her, in some vague way, that real people with real children could have kitchens that looked as tidy as this one. When was the last time her stove top had been free of dirty fingerprints? When was the last time her fridge door had glistened so white as this one? Come to think of it, when was the last time she had actually seen her refrigerator door? It had been covered with her children’s artwork for as long as she could remember. What was it Marc had said? Something about always being able to spot people with young children by the outside of their refrigerator doors? His own fridge was similarly covered, he had told her.

  There was no artwork adorning the Foster refrigerator.

  “Are there any other children in this complex, Mr. Foster?” Lynn asked as they returned to the living room.

  “None Ashleigh’s age. We’ve been thinking of moving because of that.”

  “Does Mrs. Foster work outside the home?”

  “She prefers being a full-time mother.”

  “It must be quite a strain for her, spending so much time at home with a child, especially when there are no other children in the vicinity.”

  “I think I resent the implications of that statement.”

  Lynn moved into the center of the room and deposited her cup on the low oblong table. “Could I see Ashleigh’s room, please?”

  Keith Foster said nothing. He moved purposefully to his right, to one of the two closed doors on the south wall of the living room, and opened it.

  Ashleigh’s room was more soft pinks and flowers, with a myriad of dolls in every assorted shape and size lining the walls and bookshelves, as well as covering the top of the small pink bed which stood in the middle of the room. There was a large dollhouse, a small desk, two toy boxes, which doubled as benches underneath the window, and a child-size plastic kangaroo whose pouch doubled as a laundry basket. The room—like all the others—was neat, but not uncomfortably so. There were a few toys in the middle of the floor, some papers spread across the top of the desk, a couple of crayons left out of their box. A child’s room, Lynn thought, grateful that there was nothing here to arouse suspicions. It looked like the room of a privileged, happy little girl.

  Lynn approached the desk and casually perused the drawings Ashleigh had left lying across it, surprised by what she saw. Despite the many brightly colored crayons which were everywhere in evidence, Ashleigh’s drawings were almost entirely sketched in black. In one, a large stick figure loomed menacingly over a smaller one. The larger stick figure, which could have been either a woman or a man, was all eyes and hands; the smaller figure had no hands. In another picture, a group of children were playing on the beach. None of the children had any arms.

  “I’m afraid I really can’t spare you any more time, Mrs. Schuster,” Keith Foster said as Lynn checked her watch. “I have to get to work.” He began walking to the front door, and stopped only when he realized Lynn wasn’t right behind him.

  “Is that your bedroom?” Lynn indicated the other closed door. Keith Foster nodded. “Can I see it?”

  “Not without a search warrant.”

  “Mr. Foster, I thought you understood the importance of cooperating with my department. It is absolutely essential that I talk to your wife and daughter. If they’re in there, you’re not doing anybody any favors by hiding them.”

  Keith Foster walked quickly to the front door and opened it. He waited impatiently for Lynn to join him, then surprised her by extending his hand for an amicable farewell.

  How big his hands are, Lynn thought as his fingers wrapped around hers. (Why, Grandma, what big hands you have! The better to beat you with, my child!) Lynn pulled her hand away. Was it possible Davia Messenger had simply misplaced her accusations?

  “I’ll have my wife call you later and make an appointment to bring Ashleigh in to see you,” Keith Foster said pleasantly, as if it were his idea. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really have to get to work.”

  After lunch and a brief stroll along the beach, Lynn found herself window-shopping along Atlantic Avenue, not anxious to return to her office. She’d had an altercation with her boss, Carl McVee, over her handling of the Foster inquiry. Keith Foster’s lawyer had called and given him an earful. Why were they harassing his client on the word of a crazy neighbor? Patty Foster had generously consented to bring Ashleigh in the following week for an interview and a doctor’s examination. In the meantime, Lynn had been told sharply by her boss: Lay off.

  Lynn brushed the image of Carl McVee aside, momentarily seeing him as Ashleigh Foster might have sketched him, and stared absently at each of the store windows, thinking she could probably use a few new things. She had never been much of a shopper, and her job demanded a certain amount of necessary understatement as far as her wardrobe was concerned. Gary, she realized suddenly, peering in one window at a dizzying array of feather boas and floor-length gowns of the sort Lynn had never seen anyone actually wear, had made something of a habit of buying her designer clothes at every gift-giving occasion, but she had never felt comfortable in clothes with other people’s initials all over them, and these items had generally found their way back to the stores.

  Lynn heard the sudden trill of women’s laughter behind her and she glanced over her shoulder at two women fumbling with shopping bags and a car door. “I can’t get it open,” the shorter of the two women squealed.

  “Put them in the trunk. I’m not finished yet anyway.”

  Something in the second woman’s voice—low, seductive, imperial—made Lynn turn away even before she heard the woman’s name. “Suzette
,” the first woman squealed again, “you’ve done enough damage. How many outfits do you need?”

  “Shush,” the woman whose name was Suzette said, still laughing, “I finally found a man who appreciates good clothes. I’m going to enjoy it.”

  Lynn lowered her head so deep into her chest she thought her neck would crack, as the two women threw their shopping bags into the trunk of the car and hurried by her into the store. Her heart was racing but her feet seemed glued to the sidewalk, as if the soles of her shoes were mired in tar. Even if she had wanted to, Lynn couldn’t have moved. Not that she wanted to. Not that she knew what she wanted.

  Even as she tried to convince herself that the woman she had just seen, in truth had barely seen, was not Suzette Cameron, she knew it was. How many Suzettes could there be in a small town like Delray Beach? And even as she told herself that the odds were unlikely that both she and her husband’s new love would show up in front of the same store at the same time, she also knew that it was far from impossible. People ran into each other every day. What was even more surprising was that they had managed to avoid running into one another up until now.

  Go back to work, she said to herself, forcing her legs to move. Go back to work. Instead, she pushed open the door to the small shop and walked inside.

  The interior of the store was bright and well laid out, making optimum use of its small space: dresses and evening wear to one side; more casual clothes to the other. Lynn’s eyes took in the entire store in one glance, though she kept her head low. She quickly located Suzette Cameron and her friend behind a long rack of dresses. Lynn could hear them giggling, and wondered if they were giggling about her.

  Don’t be silly, she chastised herself, taking several small steps in their direction, her eyes on her toes. Why would they be giggling about you? They don’t even know you’re here.

  Don’t they? a little voice asked. You knew her, even without hearing her name or getting a good look at her face, you knew it was she. The radar that soon-to-be ex-wives possess about the women who are poised to replace them. Lynn edged closer, pretending to be studying the dresses. What was she doing here? Did she intend to confront this woman? If so, what in God’s name did she intend to say?

  “What do you think of this one?” she heard Suzette’s companion ask.

  “Too plain,” came the immediate reply. “I’d like something a little sexier.”

  Lynn buried her fingers into the jersey fabric of one of the dresses on the rack, making an involuntary fist and absently pulling on the material. Keeping her head down, she edged in front of a nearby mirror to get closer to the two women. Just a look, she told herself. I just want to see what she looks like.

  “Now this is more like it,” Lynn heard Suzette exclaim as she skipped around the end of the rack to where Lynn was standing and held the dress against her. She positioned herself in front of the mirror and Lynn realized with something of a jolt that she was standing directly in Suzette’s line of vision. “Excuse me,” Suzette Cameron said, smiling at Lynn, the kind of smile people give you when they want you to get out of their way. Lynn obligingly backed away from the mirror, relieved not to be recognized, aware she was staring but unable to stop. Still, despite the undisguised intensity of her gaze, her mind seemed incapable of grasping the details of this woman’s physiognomy. Even forcing herself to concentrate, Lynn was unable to say initially whether Suzette Cameron’s hair was blond or brown (it was dark brown) or whether she was short or tall (the answer was: very tall). It was only after she directed her eyes to small, seemingly insignificant details, as she had trained herself to do at work—Suzette’s ears were pierced, her nails were freshly manicured—that Lynn was able to digest the woman in her entirety.

  Suzette Cameron was tall and thin and surprisingly muscular, or maybe not so surprising since she had trained as a dancer. Her legs were long, her calves their focus, calves which protruded like bowling pins from under her fashionably short skirt. Still, they were not unattractive legs, Lynn grudgingly admitted, glancing down past the hem of her own too long skirt, aware that days spent walking along the sand had given her legs their own kind of musculature. She wondered if Suzette’s thighs were as sculpted as her calves, and found herself hoping they were flabby, knowing they would be anything but.

  Suzette Cameron was a woman of odd and interesting angles. Her stomach, even after the birth of twin boys, looked flat, and her bosom was more ample than Lynn would have imagined for a dancer (correction, teacher) of ballet. Her hands were long and sinewy—she would have made an elegant dying swan, Lynn thought, wishing she could help her along. Her hair, which was so dark it looked black, though naturally black, not like Keith Foster’s vaingloriously dyed locks, was thick and shiny and shorter than her own. It hovered around her chin, which Lynn was gratified to see ended in an unattractive point, as if an artist painting a portrait had grown bored and simply drawn the two sides of her face together in order to be done with it. Her nose was the same narrow shape, although her cheeks were full, and her eyes, though large, were strangely nondescript, somewhere between green and blue without the sharpness of either. While the woman was hardly ugly, she was far from pretty. Lynn was surprised to find that she agreed with everyone’s previous assessment—that she herself was easily the prettier of the two.

  Lynn studied the woman studying herself in the mirror, the dress, a low-cut frilly orange thing of no discernible shape, pressed against her. She tried to picture Gary standing beside the woman, and then Marc. Neither seemed to fit, in much the same way that Lynn decided that the dress Suzette was considering would not suit her. It wouldn’t suit me either, Lynn thought. She quickly found another dress like the one Suzette was admiring, wondering with a sense of perversity that was new to her whether or not she should try it on, as Suzette Cameron and her friend disappeared into the first of the two fitting rooms at the far end of the store.

  “Can I help you?” a voice said from somewhere behind Lynn and she jumped.

  “I’m just looking,” Lynn told the startled salesgirl, who had jumped when Lynn did. “On second thought, I will try this on,” she said, grabbing the orange dress off its hanger without thought to its size and carrying it into the second dressing room.

  “What do you think?” she could hear Suzette ask her friend, as Lynn pulled her own skirt and blouse off and quickly pulled the dress over her head. Lynn stared at herself in the mirror. The dress was at least two sizes too large. She looked like a giant pumpkin.

  “Look what time it is already,” she heard Suzette say. “You never told me it was so late. I’m supposed to meet Gary at Boston’s in five minutes for lunch.”

  Lynn stood paralyzed in the middle of the tiny dressing stall. She stared at her orange reflection in the mirror. Woman as Giant Pumpkin, she thought, then Woman as Large Orange Fool. What was she doing playing cat and mouse, cat and mouse and cheese, she thought, looking at herself again, when she should be at the office? She had to get out of here. She had to get out of here before Suzette recognized her; she had to run to her car before she ran into Gary. If she moved fast enough, she could get out of the store before anyone even realized she’d been here. But she had to move fast.

  She was out of the dressing room and almost at the front door before she realized she was still wearing the orange dress, the same dress that Suzette was now modeling in front of the mirror in the middle of the store, the same one that the salesgirl was hollering at her about— “Where are you going with that?”—when Gary pushed open the door to the store and froze in his tracks.

  He must think he’s wandered into a nightmare, Lynn thought, watching as first the smile and then the color faded from his face. Here were his abandoned wife and the woman he had abandoned her for standing within ten feet of each other, both wearing the same god-awful orange dress, and orange was his least favorite color. At least Suzette’s dress was the right size, Lynn thought, and almost cried, realizing that the dress suited Suzette quite nicely, that it hugged
the curves of her body provocatively while Lynn’s hid the fact that she had any curves at all.

  “Gary, how did you find me?” she heard Suzette ask before the woman realized anything was amiss.

  “I saw your car,” he started to answer, his words drifting to a halt, his eyes staring blankly into the space between the two women, not sure where to look.

  “Where are you going with that dress?” the salesgirl asked again.

  And then nobody spoke, and everybody looked at everybody else until everyone, including the poor confused salesgirl, had figured out exactly who everyone was and what kind of situation they had here, and Suzette’s friend gasped.

  “This dress is just not me,” Lynn told the stunned gathering. Then she disappeared inside her tiny dressing stall and didn’t come out again until she was sure that everybody else had left.

  FOURTEEN

  Renee sat on the large white sofa in the middle of her large white living room and stared at her husband’s latest acquisition, a bright paint-splattered explosion by a Florida artist named Clarence Maesele. Abstract illusionism, Philip had called it, and Renee thought that as good a description as any. She liked the painting. It was colorful and dynamic and it moved. Unlike much of the artwork that lined the walls of Philip’s apartment (when had she started referring to it, even in her own mind, as Philip’s apartment?), consisting of static, flat lines of color, Maesele’s painting was three-dimensional, its multitude of colors leaping off the canvas in bold, erratic layers. Normally, just looking at the painting made her happy. When Philip had first brought it home a few months before, and announced that he had bought it that afternoon (when had he stopped consulting her about major purchases? had he ever consulted her?), Renee had been excited and glad. (And a touch anxious. Come on, Renee, admit it. He didn’t even stop to ask your opinion, whether you thought he’d paid too much, gotten a steal, where you thought he should hang it, whether or not you even liked it.) She had run to get him a pencil and a ruler so that he could measure and mark the spot where he would hammer in the nail, then she had helped him hang the large painting, mindful not to scratch the wall. Then she had sat back and studied the painting, letting him tell her all about it, formulating a few observations of her own but keeping them to herself, afraid to risk his censure or ridicule. Philip was the authority on art. There was a time when she knew a little something about it, but lately, she had let that knowledge slide. Maybe she had let her practice overtake her life. Maybe she had lost sight of her priorities.