Back in her car, Lu picks the Sinatra station on Sirius, hoping to quiet her mind, roiling with nervous energy. She catches the end of “You Couldn’t Be Cuter.”
“Ella Fitzgerald,” she says out loud, as if Gabe were still there, quizzing her. “Written by Jerome Kern.” She could almost always identify the vocalists, even if she couldn’t tell Django Reinhardt from . . . well, whoever else was famous for playing jazz guitar. Gabe would have considered Reinhardt too well-known for his pop quizzes. This song is on the Jerome Kern Songbook album and Lu is old enough to remember albums, the days when one listened to a record in order. When the song dies out, she half expects to hear what would have followed on the album or CD: “She Didn’t Say Yes.” Now, there was a politically incorrect song if ever there was one. And yet a wise one because it realized that people, most people, could not get outside their own heads. So what did she do? . . . She did just what you’d do too. Translated: People behave as you would. And if they don’t? They’re probably wrong.
Nita Flood didn’t say yes, she didn’t say no. Nita Flood, caught in a lie about being raped, came to believe it. Our minds shape our memories to be something we can bear. Happens all the time. What if Nita decided that her story, more credible now because of the way times had changed, was something she should go public with, despite the potential embarrassment for a very public, very righteous pastor? There was no record; Davey had been no-billed by the grand jury, everyone involved was a minor. Ben Flood’s attack on Davey was always reported as provoked by unfounded rumors. At the insistence of Lu’s father—again, he had always been thinking of Nita, the way her lies could destroy her future. The Wilde Lake students who had once gossiped about the story probably had dim memories now: Nita Flood was a slut who got drunk, had sex with her boyfriend, then accused him of rape because he wouldn’t take her out in public. Yet over the past year, more and more women had come forward with stories about being drugged and molested by a famous comedian. What would happen if Nita Flood tried to do the same thing to Davey Robinson? Would people still be so quick to ignore her?
Lu can’t imagine the young man she knew hiring a homeless drifter to kill his former girlfriend. But then—she can’t imagine Davey opposing marriage equality and supporting the death penalty. Davey has power; he has been in the media a lot over the past few years. He doesn’t even believe in sex out of wedlock. What would he do if his former girlfriend threatened to speak publicly about what happened between them?
The only thing to do is to ask.
APRIL 10
“What are you thinking about?”
Lu wakes with a start, confused and disoriented. What is she thinking about? Where is she? The dim room, the neutral “art” on the walls, the heavy, humid presence of another body—she has fallen asleep in Bash’s place, something she has never done before. He catnaps sometimes, but she never does.
“I—I must have dozed off.”
“Guess I’m losing a step.”
“No”—yawn—“no, lover, no. I’m . . . just . . . so . . . tired. Insomnia.”
Lu is used to being tired. She’s been tired since her kids were born. But as of late, she’s tired in a new way. Twice in the past week, she has fallen asleep on the sofa while watching television and it felt as if she were pinned to the cushions by invisible hands. She would open her eyes at 2 or 3 A.M., surprised and disoriented, the very act of rising and stumbling into her bed seemingly impossible. Yet once in bed, she can’t sleep at all. She has always slept well. What is happening?
“Ah, it’s your age, I guess.”
“My age? I’m eight years younger than you.”
“It’s a female thing. Insomnia at midlife.”
This may be her least favorite conversation ever with Bash. Not that there have been that many conversations to begin with. She doesn’t waste a lot of time talking to him. Bash was the “dumb” one in AJ’s group, and even when it turned out that he had been stealthily intelligent all along—making National Merit Scholar, getting a full ride to Trinity—his reputation was more or less sealed within the group. Old friends, like family, have a hard time letting personae change. You are what you were. That’s why Lu can’t stand to have anyone refer to her stature. It reminds her, always, of “Little Lu.”
“Your wife is even younger than I am, Bash. What do you know about women at midlife?” She’s trying to make a joke, but an edge slips into her voice, a little pocketknife showing its blade.