I said, “I saw you once. The bar off LaSalle. With the blond man.” I named the address and saw recognition dawn on his face.
In that moment, the man I knew dropped away. The sleek, jovial face became instantly pale, almost haunted. In his eyes, I saw true fear. He made sense to me then. He wore the mask of a ladies’ man to conceal what kind of man he truly was. He’d had a fellow feeling for me from the beginning because he knew, so perfectly, what it was to be different from everyone else.
“Oh God,” he said and reached for me with both hands. He pinned my arms to the table, his hands on my wrists, clutching tightly. “I can’t—you can’t tell anyone. How much do you want? Anything, you can have it. Anything.”
“DeForest,” I said. “No.”
“Please.”
“You’re my friend,” I told him. I had to tug on my hands twice, the second time with some force, to get him to release me. “I won’t betray you. You’ve been too good to me, whatever else you are.”
A smile tried to work its way onto his face, but the fear didn’t leave his eyes. In some way, I couldn’t possibly fathom him, his unnatural interests, his decision to be like he was. But the undertow of his terror I understood.
I said, “So you understand why I asked about what you plan to do with Cath.”
He said grimly, “I plan to do what the work requires.”
“Good, then.”
The introduction went as well as I’d hoped, and the two of them got on like a house on fire.
That very first evening, the three of us dined in an ale house off Second Street, near the water. DeForest made a sly joke about the salubrious effects of oysters. Cath giggled merrily, putting her hand on his arm. I pretended I didn’t understand, because it didn’t feel right either to laugh along with them or to act shocked by their instant intimacy. They would do what they would do. I could encourage or discourage it, whichever I thought made it more likely for Cath to desert her husband and turn over everything she knew about the stolen money to us.
I sat there a divided woman, both that night and the week of nights that followed, whether I was with the two of them or alone with Cath. As she swooned in raptures about her good friend Mr. Kelley’s attentions, the operative in me gloated. We’d soon have what we needed; everything was going according to plan. But another part of me cringed and shrank away. I wanted to warn her not to get too attached, and on occasion, I did. The woman I was pretending to be would have done the same. It was safe. I could say, Now don’t forget you’re a married woman to the eyes of the world. I could say, I know love overwhelms all reason. I could not say, The man you love will never love you, will never love a woman at all, doesn’t have any esteem for you, is tricking you every minute of every day, and so am I. Run, run, run.
But who wouldn’t love DeForest? His careful attention, his suave manner, his devastating grin. She stood no chance.
I told myself we could only catch her doing wrong if she did wrong. If she were truly innocent, there was no evidence we could manufacture that would entrap her. That was how I slept that night and many others. The guilty were the ones who ensnared themselves, imprisoned themselves, surrendered themselves. We were only collecting on a debt.
? ? ?
After a week, I went to visit her one morning, and I could tell immediately from the pink in her cheeks that a corner had been turned. Cath and I had breakfast together at the boardinghouse table, and she couldn’t stay still, poking the legs of the table with her toes, tapping her fingers merrily on the saucer under her teacup. She only made idle chitchat while we ate, but I knew far more was to come and proposed we go out for a walk together. It was raining, but she readily agreed.
We raised our umbrellas and stood close together, keeping the rain off our shoulders and giving us some small measure of privacy. We were barely even off the porch, but she wasted no time in clutching my hand and whispering her news.
“He wants me to run away with him.”
“A scandal!” I said. “Delicious! Will you?”
“I want to. Oh, how I want to.”
“You two do seem to…get on.”
“We do!” She laughed in delight, but her face quickly grew serious. “But oh, I don’t know. Nathan is counting on me…”
It was the first time she’d ever used his name with me. I chose my words carefully. They needed to pertain to the story she’d told me as well as the story that was true. “Nathan abandoned you.”
“Yes and no. He told me he depends on me. I’m the only one who can save him.”
I steered us toward the park. The rain made a soothing sort of patter on our umbrellas over our heads. “A lot of men say things like that. Doesn’t make them true. What do you have to save him from anyway?”
“I can’t tell you.”
I pretended to pout. “Oh, but you tell me everything!”
“I want to. It’s only that—well, I haven’t been completely honest.”
“I’m sure you had good reason. And you can, you know. Be honest.”
“You may judge me.”
“Would you judge me,” I asked, taking a confessional tone, “knowing I was once married to a gambler? A man with no control, no restraint, who lost all our money time and again?”
“Of course not. That’s not your fault.”
“We never know the men we marry,” I intoned, “until well after we’ve married them. And by then, it’s too late.”
She nodded fiercely. “It’s so.”
“So if this—Nathan, was it?—has done wrong by you, I say you owe him precious little.”
“But he hasn’t deserted me. Not exactly.”
I sensed her starting to push back, falling into the position of defending her husband against me, even though I was only echoing the worst of what she herself had thought and said. I needed to change tactics. I took her hand and paused.
“I suppose you’re right. Married for better or for worse, isn’t that what they say? Though it’s been far more of the worse lately.”