Liv turned to Dale. “I’m just going to slip out now, before the real fun starts.” A band had been setting up in front of the small dance floor, and they looked to be about to get started. Liv shot Clara a smile. “For once, I have a date who can dance! Will you guys get me more wine if they come around? And if they’re taking dessert orders, my order is YES.”
“I can’t promise not to eat yours,” Dale said, “but I can promise to order it.”
“Fair enough.”
As she disappeared into the hallway, the singer took the microphone and introduced the band. “We’re going to start nice and slow while you all enjoy some coffee and cheesecake,” he crooned, “but stick around for the real show.” The opening notes of “Hotel California” filled the room.
“Is this a Christmas party, a wedding, or a bar mitzvah?” Dale asked. “I’ve lost track.”
“If the ‘real show’ is ‘Hava Nagila,’ we can rule out Christmas,” Matt said, and the table erupted.
“If it’s ‘Twist and Shout,’ we’ll assemble a bridal party,” Clara said with a laugh.
Benny leaned in so only she could hear. “I’d marry you right now,” he said, nuzzling her ear. She felt so full, so warm.
“Cheesecake?” A server was hovering above them, trying not to look impatient. Clara waved him away. “If I eat another bite, I’ll never get up. But Dale here will have two.”
“So will I,” Benny said, and Dale let out a whistle of approval.
Clara folded her cloth napkin neatly on the table. “I’m going to hit the ladies’ room,” she said. “Who wants something from the bar on the way back?” All the hands at the table went up, and she lifted her own in surrender. “Too many! I’ll meet you in line.”
There was no wait for a stall, and Clara lingered at the sink, perusing the courtesy lotions and sprays and helping herself to a mint. As she meandered back through the lobby, she stopped at a display of a porcelain street scene from It’s a Wonderful Life, nestled in white mounds of soft cotton meant to look like snow. She bent to peer into the lighted windows of the little Victorian on the end, admiring the detail, right down to the miniature “George Lassos the Moon” art print inside. Maybe she and Benny should come here, party or no party, every Christmas. They’d bring their children one day, gather around the communal fireplace to eat sugar cookies, delight in the water park’s mash-up of indoor palm trees strung with white lights. She felt like a child herself. What a magical place her boss had chosen. She should find him and tell him so.
But she didn’t need to find him. Here he was, rushing into the hall, his eyes wild, as the hotel manager and a pair of uniformed security guards rushed toward him. “A disturbance in your block of rooms,” she heard the manager say, his tone low but brusque. “The police have been called.”
Clara’s feet were moving now, following them, not stopping to think. Benny filled the doorway of the ballroom, a look of confusion on his face, and wordlessly fell into step next to her. The men were almost running. “What’s going on?” she heard Matt call behind them. But none of them turned to answer. At the end of the hall, a security guard threw open a stairwell door.
“One flight up,” he barked, as his partner rushed past him. “Us first,” he called over his shoulder to Graham, before charging up the stairs.
Clara could already hear the screaming. No, wailing. She couldn’t discern if it was male or female. But she saw soon enough. It was Dale, his hands over his face, just inside the door to the second-floor hallway. He lifted a shaking arm and pointed to the opposite end of the corridor. “It was her ex-boyfriend!” he screamed. “He ran that way! Oh, God, why…”
The uniformed guards charged off. Clara reached the top step and looked past Dale into the hall. Smears of red on cream flowered wallpaper. A woman standing frozen in the doorway of an open room—somebody’s wife, Clara couldn’t remember whose. “I’m the one who called,” the woman said, her voice far away. “I heard her screaming—I was scared to open the door—but I should have … I should have…” She looked pale enough to faint.
Midway down the hall, a crumpled form on the floor. One security guard dropped to his knees beside the tangle of arms and legs, and the other kept going, in the direction where Dale had pointed. The manager yelled, “Stay back!” but Graham pushed ahead, and then he was screaming too. The word no. Please no. Over and over.
There were so very many smears of red on the walls. Both sides, some of the doors too. Benny put out an arm, pressed Clara behind him, just as her toe kicked something hard.
She sank to the floor, still not understanding, and her fingers closed around something smooth and cold. She knew before looking that it was a bottle of clear nail polish.
30
If you knew today might be the last day of your life, would you be less snippy with the slow bagger at the grocery store, even though you were running late? Would you tell your neighbor you didn’t mind the intrusion, rather than showing that you so obviously did? Would you donate money to the person in need who asked for it?
If, in my absence, people reflect upon my day-to-day and remark that I was kind, this is why. A daily visual of sand slipping through an hourglass can do wonders for your social skills. Try it sometime.
It was never that I cared what people thought of me. It was that I’d made such a mess of things, I wanted to try to be good in some small, other way. To give the bagger faith that not every customer was rude. To give the neighbor a feeling of living among goodwill. To extend a courtesy to the person in need—because I knew too well that kindness could be in short supply at home. Besides, as they say, you can’t take it with you.
Of course, there was also the need to keep up appearances for my husband’s sake. Come to think of it, take the two factors combined, and I bet I look like a saint. Except for everything he’s undoubtedly done his best to undo since I’ve been gone. Painting himself as the victim. Pointing fingers at the money. There was a time it would have made me sick, filled me with a rage that might even rival his own.
But it doesn’t matter anymore.
He can’t touch me now.
31
A grief counselor will be on hand throughout the week, by appointment, in the human resources suite. It can take time to fully realize the impact such a sudden and shocking event may have on those involved. If you find yourself questioning whether you might benefit from this service, please take advantage of it while it’s available.
—Monday morning corporate memo to all employees
Clara had finished talking, and it was clearly Izzy’s turn to say something. It was just that she couldn’t imagine what the appropriate response to such a story might be. Clara’s eyes had a faraway look, and she’d grown pale, as if the story had taken her back to that hallway.
“She was…?”
Clara nodded, and the lump in Izzy’s throat bobbed closer to the surface.
“I’m so sorry. Did they catch the guy?”
“He didn’t get far. I don’t think he had much interest in not being caught.” Clara hugged herself and shivered, though the room was almost muggy from the overexcited furnace returning from its summer hiatus. “Dale wouldn’t stop beating himself up that he hadn’t gone back to the room with her, but it probably saved his life that he didn’t. He was hiding there, waiting. He had a big knife. He didn’t know that she and Dale weren’t more than friends. He point-blank told the cops that if he couldn’t have her no one could.”
“Jesus.” Izzy was trying to remember if she’d heard about this on the news. She hadn’t always spent so much time swimming in tragic headlines—and domestic violence stories were so sadly common they had a way of running together. “What was his name?”