Relief swept her. She knew him. Mr. Hayes. So funny he should appear, as if she had conjured him by remembering the time she and Lucy had tried his gin when Lucy had been babysitting for his little boy.
“Hey, you don’t want a ride, that’s okay. Suit yourself.” Jervis floored the gas and took off, trailing the scent of exhaust.
Rain looked at Lucy’s neighbor. “Thanks,” she said.
“No problem. Glad to help.”
“My brother was supposed to pick me up, but I guess he forgot.”
“If you’d like I could give you a ride,” he said. “Or if you prefer I can drive and you can walk and I’ll escort you home, ride shotgun as it were. Keep away unwanted advances.”
Rain had to laugh. She scanned the street. Still no sight of Duane. “That’s okay. I don’t want to bother you.”
“No bother. If we see your brother along the way, we’ll flag him down.”
“Okay,” she said. “If you’re sure it’s no bother.”
He reached over and opened the passenger door for her. “You’re one of Lucy Light’s friends, aren’t you?”
“Yes. Her best friend.” It came out like she was bragging, and she wished she had only nodded.
“I haven’t seen you around for a while.”
“No.” Even for someone older, he was good-looking. She wished she had worn something a little prettier, wished the polish on her toenails wasn’t all chipped.
“Buckle up. Got to keep you safe,” he said.
Her cheeks heated, and she reached for the strap and engaged the buckle.
“So, where to?”
“Where to?”
“Where do you live?”
“Oh, right.” He must think she was an idiot. “Chandler Street.”
“So what were you doing in this part of town?”
“Oh, nothing. Visiting a friend.” She could only imagine what he’d think if she told him she was seeing a shrink. Too soon they turned onto her street and he pulled into her driveway.
“Here you go,” he said.
There was no sign of Duane and his piece-of-shit car or her mother’s Volvo, which saved her from spending the next hour being cross-examined about how she got home. “Thanks again. For everything.”
“Anytime.”
Anytime?
“I’m always glad to help a damsel in distress.”
Damsel in distress.
What an old-fashioned thing to say. But she played the words over. Damsel. In distress. Rescued. And for a moment, for one of the few times since Lucy was murdered, she felt protected. Safe.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I’d had a week of fitful sleep and felt as if I suffered from some kind of wasting disease.
A partially completed canvas waited at the easel, but I stared blankly at the painting that had once been so promising. Technically the composition—five oysters on the half shell set on an indigo plate—was not the problem. It was fine, I could see that, the light refracting off the flesh of the mollusks was exact, yet I had lost interest in it, cared no more about it than I would a dead houseplant, as if an unseen yet powerful force had stilled my hand. So even this last refuge in my life, the slender modicum of peace I had found in the studio, was to be taken from me. From the hollow, aching emptiness of the house I heard the phone ringing. Finally the caller gave up and the echo of the ringing evaporated and, as always, Lucy’s absence crowded in, a deafening presence. This absence was like the sky, covering everything. It was like living in a room hung with heavy curtains. Unable to bear the claustrophobic silence any longer, I fled the house.
The market was nearly deserted. It was far too early for the after-work crowd, and the morning shoppers had come and gone. I grabbed a basket—no need for a cart—and negotiated the aisles, shopping for the few items that now sustained me. I passed the long stands overflowing with fresh produce and turned toward the meat department, where a white-jacketed butcher was busy arranging cellophaned packages of chops and steaks, chicken thighs, and ground beef in neat rows in the display counter. Not for the first time, I was struck by the extravagance of it all, the waste implicit in such abundance, the food that would remain unsold past expiration dates, produce already decaying and destined for the huge garbage bins that lined the concrete wall behind the market. I had to resist the urge to abandon my basket there in the middle of the aisle.
Today the spike-haired cashier at the checkout sported two-inch strands dyed purple. Not any improvement over the usual pink. “Hey, Mr. L,” she said. She looked at my groceries. “You find everything you need?”
I nodded, avoiding conversation. I no longer trusted my hearing. A sign hanging above the belt read, “Remove All Items from Your Cart or Basket at Checkout.” Dutifully I emptied the groceries. Coffee. Bread. Peanut butter. A stack of frozen dinners I once would have considered inedible but that now comprised most of my meals. I sensed rather than saw another shopper push a cart into the narrow space beside me. The woman began to unload her groceries. I set the plastic divider between our orders and moved my few items along the belt toward the cashier.
“Hi,” said a small voice from below.
Two toddlers stared up at me from the folds of the woman’s skirt, the girl a miniature version of her mother, the boy, younger with a darker complexion. A baby was propped up in a yellow molded infant seat in the grocery cart. It was the girl who had spoken.
“Hi,” she said again, staring up with clear brown eyes, steady and trusting.
“Hi.” I pushed the word out and turned away. The cashier scanned each item with infuriating slowness. I reached for my billfold, as if that would make her quicken her pace. Beside me, the mother lifted the baby out of the seat, straddling the infant on one hip. She turned to lift the molded seat from the cart, and from the edge of my vision, I caught a glimpse of the infant just as he slid from her grasp. Motion seemed to slow—the open-mouthed mother crying out, her eyes wide, the cashier’s hands frozen at their task, baby slipping, slipping, slipping, from hip to thigh to knee, toward the floor.
Without thought, I brushed aside the other children and lunged for the infant, felt my shoulders jerk as I caught him.
“Whoa. Great save, Mr. L,” the cashier said. “You totally rock.”
The infant was heavy in my arms.
The woman, shock fading, reached for her baby. We were separated by an arm’s length, and I looked fully at her for the first time. As our eyes met, a faint memory stirred, a familiarity. Do I know you?
“Thank you,” she said as she lifted her infant from my arms and cradled him close to her chest. Relieved of the burden, my arms felt lighter, emptier. Bereft. The mother held my gaze a moment longer, as if searching for something else to say. Again I was struck with a sense of knowing her. A hand tugged at my shirt hem. The girl reached an arm up to me, holding something toward me in her fist.
“Here, mister,” she said.
I shifted my gaze from the child to her mother, as if for guidance, and was struck by the calmness she radiated, how peaceful she seemed, only moments after the near disaster. She nodded her okay.