Whispers and Lies Read online

  “It’s great,” I agreed.

  “Some of those paintings sell for thousands of dollars, so that’d be fantastic, if I sold one of them. But mostly I’ll be behind the cash register. Me and this other girl who works there. Denise Nickson, I think her name is. She’s Fern’s niece. And what else? Oh—I get twelve dollars an hour, and I start on Monday. Isn’t that great?”

  “It’s great,” I said again.

  “I couldn’t wait to tell you, so I came right over.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “Can I take you to lunch?”

  “Lunch?”

  “To celebrate. My treat.”

  I shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. Technically, I was on my lunch break right now, and my stomach had been making hungry noises for the past hour. “I can’t. Things are so busy here today.…”

  “Dinner, then.”

  “I can’t. I’m working a double shift.”

  “Tomorrow night,” she persisted. “That’s even better. It’s a Saturday, so you can sleep in the next morning. You’re not busy tomorrow night, are you?”

  “No,” I said, realizing that Alison wouldn’t settle for less than a definite date, even if she had to go through every day from now till Christmas. “But really, it isn’t necessary for you to take me out.”

  “Of course it is,” Alison insisted. “Besides, I want to. To thank you for all you’ve done for me.”

  “I haven’t done anything.”

  “Are you kidding? You gave me the best place in the whole wide world to live, you cooked me dinner, you made me feel welcome. You even took care of me when I got sick. I owe you big time, Terry Painter.”

  “You don’t owe me anything but the rent,” I said, struggling to keep my distance, feeling myself sway reluctantly back into her orbit, falling under her spell. You gave me the best place in the whole wide world to live. Who says things like that? How could you not be charmed?

  Besides, what was I so worried about? What could I possibly have to fear, especially from someone like Alison? Even assuming the worst, that she was some sort of clever con artist, what could she possibly be after? I had little in the way of material goods—my small house, its tiny adjacent cottage, negligible savings, my mother’s silly collection of ladies’ head vases. So what? Small potatoes, all of it. This was Florida, for heaven’s sake. Forty minutes north were the oceanside mansions of Palm Beach and Hobe Sound; forty minutes south were the palatial homes of Miami’s infamous South Beach. Florida was synonymous with money, with wealthy old men just waiting to be taken advantage of by beautiful young girls. Hell, it’s what was keeping them alive. It didn’t make sense that Alison would waste her time with me.

  I realize now that there are times when our brains will simply not allow us to accept the evidence our own eyes present, that the desire for self-delusion outweighs the instinct for self-preservation, that no matter how old we are or how wise we think we’ve become, we are never really convinced of our own mortality. Besides, since when do things have to make sense?

  “So, are we on?” Alison’s big, loopy grin widened with expectation.

  “We’re on,” I heard myself reply.

  “Great.” She spun around in a full circle, the skirt of her sundress swirling around her knees. “Anywhere in particular you’d like to go?”

  I shook my head. “Surprise me.”

  She rubbed the gold heart at her throat. “I love surprises.”

  As if on cue, the fire alarm sounded. It turned out to be a false alarm, but in the few minutes it took to make sure everything was okay, chaos reigned. When I returned to the nurses’ station after reassuring several panicky patients that the hospital was not about to become a blazing inferno, Alison was gone.

  “Everybody okay?” Margot asked.

  “Mr. Austin said, fire or no fire, he wasn’t going anywhere without his teeth.” I laughed, picturing the feisty old man in room 411.

  “Pretty girl you were talking to earlier,” Margot remarked.

  “My new tenant.”

  “Really? Well, I hope you have better luck this time around.”

  * * *

  THE NEXT HOUR PASSED IN RELATIVE CALM. There were no more fire alarms, no unexpected visitors. After a brief lunch in the cafeteria, I kept busy checking pulses, delivering pain medication, helping patients to and from the bathroom, comforting them as they railed against their fate. At some point I found myself at the door to Sheena O’Connor’s room. I hesitated briefly, then pushed the door open and stepped inside.

  The teenager lay in the middle of her bed, staring at the ceiling with eyes wide with terror. Was she seeing the man who’d raped and beaten her senseless, then left her for dead? I approached the bed, reached out, and touched her hand, but if she felt my touch at all, she gave no sign. “It’s okay,” I whispered. “You’re safe now.”

  I pulled up a chair, sat down beside her, the words to an old Irish lullaby suddenly dancing inside my head. It took a few seconds for me to find the tune, and next thing I knew I was singing—softly, gently, as one sings to a newborn baby—“Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ra … too-ra-loo-ra-lie …”

  I don’t know what made me think of that particular song. I couldn’t remember my mother ever singing it to me. Maybe it was the name O’Connor. Maybe I thought Sheena’s mother might have sung it to her, that the song might stir something deep in the girl’s subconscious, remind her of a time when she felt secure and protected, a time when no harm could befall her.

  “Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ra,” I sang, my voice gaining strength with each repetition of the simple sounds. “Too-ra-loo-ra-lie …”

  Sheena remained motionless.

  “Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ra … that’s an Irish lullaby.”

  “And it’s a very lovely one,” a man’s voice said from the doorway.

  I recognized the voice without having to turn around. I swallowed the sounds in my throat and willed my face not to betray me as I turned toward the doorway. Josh Wylie, tall and almost carelessly handsome, with salt-and-pepper hair and his mother’s blue eyes, stood watching me. “How long have you been standing there?”

  “Long enough to realize you have a beautiful voice.”

  I gripped the railing at Sheena’s bedside to steady myself as I rose to my feet. “Thank you.” I walked across the room, my heart wobbling, although my feet were surprisingly steady. Josh Wylie backed into the hallway as I approached, and I shut the door to Sheena’s room behind me.

  “What’s the matter with her?” Josh asked as we started down the corridor.

  I related the gruesome details of the assault. “She’s in a coma. Her eyes are open, but she doesn’t see anything.”

  “Will she be that way forever?”

  “Nobody knows.”

  “What a shame.” Josh shook his head sadly. “So, how’s my mother doing?” He smiled, a warm upturn of his lips that underlined the sparkle in his eyes. “I understand you cut her hair.”

  “Just a few snips here and there. She seems to like it.”

  “She’s crazy about it. She’s crazy about you,” Josh emphasized. “Thinks you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread.”

  “The feeling’s mutual.”

  “Thinks I should take you out to lunch the next time I visit.”

  “What?”

  “Lunch, next Friday. If you’re free. If you’re hungry …”

  “I’m always hungry,” I said, grateful when he laughed. “Lunch next Friday sounds great.” I thought of Alison. Two surprising invitations in one day.

  “Okay, then, next Friday it is.” We reached the nurses’ station. “Till then, I leave my mother in your capable and creative hands.”

  “Drive carefully,” I called as Josh stepped inside the waiting elevator.

  “And no uniform. This isn’t a business lunch.” He waved as the elevator door drew slowly closed.

  This isn’t a business lunch, I repeated silently, mentally raiding my closet, trying to decide what t
o wear, wondering whether to splurge on a new outfit. It was only then that I became aware of a slight commotion behind me. “Problems?” I asked, spinning around on my heels, seeing Margot and Caroline making exaggerated sweeps of the desk with their hands and eyes.

  “Caroline’s wallet is missing from her purse,” Margot said.

  I came around to the inside of the nurses’ station, began my own head sweep. “You’re sure? It’s not in a pocket somewhere?”

  “I’ve looked everywhere,” Caroline moaned, brushing chin-length, brown hair away from her long face, emptying the contents of her purse onto the floor. At the best of times, Caroline looked vaguely depressed. Now she looked positively distraught.

  “Maybe you left it in another purse. I did that once,” I offered gamely, although I’d never done any such thing.

  “No, I had it with me this morning. I know, because I bought a cup of coffee and a Danish downstairs.”

  “Maybe you left it on the counter after you paid.”

  Caroline shook her head. “I’m sure I put it back in my purse.” She looked up and down the corridor, tears filling her dejected brown eyes. “Damn it. I had over a hundred dollars in there.”

  I thought of Alison. She’d been here when the fire alarm had sounded and the nursing station had been left temporarily unattended. And she’d been gone by the time everything had settled down. Was it possible she’d helped herself to Caroline’s wallet?

  Why would I think that?

  Surely it was much more logical to assume that Caroline had left her wallet in the cafeteria. “I think you should call downstairs,” I advised, opening and closing drawers, checking each small compartment behind the desk, then peeking into my own purse to make sure nothing was missing.

  “I’ll call the cafeteria,” Caroline agreed grudgingly, “but I know it’s not there. Somebody took it. Somebody took it.”

  SIX

  Saturday night, the phone rang just as I was stepping out of the shower. I wrapped one large white towel around my body, threw another one across my shoulders, and padded across my bedroom floor toward the phone, wondering if Alison was calling to cancel our dinner. I lifted the phone to my ear and pushed my wet hair away from my cheek. “Hello?”

  “I’d like to speak to Erica Hollander,” the male voice announced without further preamble.

  It took half a second for the name to register on my brain. “Erica Hollander is no longer my tenant,” I said coolly, my eyes following several wayward trickles of water as they ran down my legs to the ivory carpet. Anxiety simultaneously trickled through my insides.

  “Do you know where I can reach her?” The voice carried traces of a soft Southern twang. I didn’t think I’d heard it before.

  “I’m afraid I have no idea where she is.”

  “When did she leave?”

  I thought back to the last time I’d seen Erica. “It was the end of August.”

  “She didn’t leave a forwarding address?”

  “She didn’t leave a thing, and that includes the two months’ rent she owed me. Who’s calling?”

  The answer to my question was a resounding click in my ear.

  I dropped the receiver into its carriage, then plopped down on my bed, taking a series of long, deep breaths, trying to push unpleasant memories of Erica Hollander out of my head. But she was as stubborn in her absence as she’d been in her presence, and she refused to be so easily dismissed.

  Erica Hollander was young, like Alison, and like Alison, willowy and tall, though not quite as tall, not quite as willowy. Her hair was a luxurious dark brown and hung straight to her shoulders, and she was continually tossing it from side to side, the way you see them do in those annoying television commercials that equate a good shampoo with a good orgasm. But her face, while pretty enough in a certain light, hovered perilously close to plain. Only her nose, a nose that was long and thin and veered suddenly to the left, gave her any character at all. It was her one distinguishing feature. Of course, she hated it. “I’m saving up to have it done,” she’d told me on more than one occasion.

  “Your nose is beautiful,” I’d assured her, ever the mother hen.

  “It’s awful. I’m saving up to have it done.”

  I’d listened to her whine about her nose; I’d listened to her brag about her boyfriend—“Charlie’s so handsome, Charlie’s so smart”—who was spending a year working in Tokyo; I’d listened when she stopped bragging and started whining—“Charlie didn’t call this week, Charlie better watch his step”—and I’d reserved judgment when she got involved with some guy she’d met at Elwood’s, a well-known biker hangout on Atlantic Avenue. I’d even lent her money to buy a used portable computer. All because I thought we were friends. It never occurred to me that she’d skip out in the middle of the night, still owing me for the computer, not to mention several months in back rent.

  Smart, handsome Charlie in Tokyo couldn’t accept that his girlfriend had dumped him as unceremoniously as she’d dumped me and had plagued me with increasingly unpleasant phone calls from Japan, demanding to know her whereabouts. He’d even notified the police, who basically corroborated my story, but even that wasn’t enough to satisfy him. He’d continued harassing me longdistance until I’d threatened to call his employer. And then suddenly, the phone calls stopped.

  Until tonight.

  I shook my head, amazed that though Erica Hollander had been gone for almost three months, she was still causing me grief. She’d been my first tenant and, I’d vowed after she’d taken off, my last.

  What had happened to change my mind?

  Truth be told, I missed having someone around. I don’t have a lot of friends. There are my co-workers, women like Margot and Caroline, but we rarely socialize away from the hospital. Caroline has a demanding husband, and Margot has four kids to look after. And I’ve always been a little reserved. This shyness, coupled with my tendency to throw myself into my work, has made it hard for me to meet new people. Plus, my mother was sick for so long before she died, and between caring for my patients at the hospital and caring for her at home, well, there are only so many hours in a day.

  Besides, something insidious happens to women in our society when they turn forty, especially if they’re not married. We get lost in a heavy, free-floating haze. It becomes difficult to see us. People know we’re there; it’s just that we’ve become a little fuzzy, so blurred around the edges we’ve begun blending into the surrounding scenery. It’s not that we’re invisible exactly—people actually step around us to avoid confronting us—but the truth is we are no longer seen. And if you aren’t seen, you aren’t heard.

  That’s what happens to women over forty.

  We lose our voice.

  Maybe that’s why we seem so angry. Maybe it’s not hormones after all. Maybe we just want someone to pay attention.

  Anyway, I started thinking about how nice it had been when Erica Hollander had first moved in, how much fun it had been having someone around, even if we didn’t see each other all that much. I don’t know. Somehow, just the fact that someone was sharing my space had made me feel less alone. So I decided to try it again. What is it they say about second marriages? That they’re a triumph of hope over experience?

  At any rate, I was determined not to make the same mistakes the second time around. That’s why I’d decided against advertising for a tenant in the newspaper, choosing instead to post a number of discreet notices around the hospital. I reasoned that, this way, I was more likely to attract someone older, more responsible. Maybe a professional, perhaps even a woman like myself.

  Instead I got Alison.

  The phone rang, bringing me back to the present. I became aware of the air conditioner blowing against the back of my neck, like a lover’s cool breath. I shuddered with the chill.

  “Hi, it’s me,” Alison chirped as I lifted the receiver to my ear. “Didn’t you hear me knock?”

  The towel at my breast came loose and fell to the floor as I rose to my feet.
“What? No. Where are you?”

  “At your kitchen door. I’m on my cell. Is everything all right?”

  “Fine. I’m just running a little late. Can I pick you up in ten minutes?”

  “No problem.”

  Securing my towel around me, I walked to my bedroom window and watched from behind the white lace curtain as Alison ambled back toward the cottage. She was wearing a slinky, navy dress I didn’t remember seeing in her closet, and her silver sling-back shoes, which she had no trouble walking in at all. I watched as she tucked her cell phone inside the silver purse dangling from her shoulder, only to withdraw it again almost immediately, several loose bills escaping their cramped confines and wafting toward the ground. Alison immediately scooped up the money and stuffed it back inside her small silver bag. I quickly recalled the handful of $100 bills Alison had given me for first and last month’s rent, then found myself thinking about the $100 that had gone missing from Caroline’s purse. Was it possible Alison had taken it?

  “That’s ridiculous,” I said out loud, watching Alison punch a series of numbers into her cell phone. Alison had no need to steal money from strangers. I watched her whisper something into the receiver, then laugh. Suddenly she spun around, almost as if she’d known I was watching her. I flattened myself against the wall and didn’t move again until I heard the cottage door open and close.

  Fifteen minutes later, I was at her door, wearing a calf-length, pale yellow, sleeveless dress with a pronounced décolletage that I’d bought a year ago, but had never had the nerve to wear. “Sorry I took so long. I couldn’t get my hair to sit right.”

  “You look fabulous.” Alison regarded me with the practiced eye of women who are used to looking in mirrors. “You just need a little trim,” she announced after a pause. “I could do it for you. Don’t forget I worked for a few months in a hairdressing salon.”