“You’re kidding.”
“He thinks racist cops might have tampered with the evidence.The Fuhrman thing.He thinks all sorts ofthings.”
“He actually thinks O.J.is innocent?”
“I don’t know.”Here is the hard part.“Let me take a sip ofwine and tell you what I really think.”
“Sip away.”
Kate finishes the entire glass, dabs her palm against her chin, where a single red drop clings, and then refills her glass.
“He has a wicked crush on this black woman and I think he’s tailoring his O.J.opinions to suit her fashion.”
“Oh, Kate, are you sure?”Lorraine’s voice sounds warm, motherly.
Lorraine’s compassion always comes as a sort ofpleasant surprise, though she never fails to show it.
“No, not really.But…I’m pretty sure.”
“Who’s the woman?”
“Oh, just some local mom, a perpetual grad student, with an absentee husband.”
“I’m not getting a clear picture.”
“Her name’s Iris.I really feel like killing her with my bare hands, I feel like O.J.-ing her.She’s reasonably attractive, in a freckly sort ofway.
She hasAdored Daughter Syndrome, she just sort ofsits there and ex-pects all this attention.She has some demented kid who Ruby likes, so there’s all these occasions to get together, Daniel and Iris.You should see them together.Daniel’s entire body becomes one big boner.”
“And you?”Lorraine asks.
”What do you mean?What about me?”
“Are you going to let this temptress take your boyfriend away?”
Lorraine is being far too lighthearted about this, and as a way of telling her so Kate lets that last remark hang in the air for a few extra moments.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do, Lorraine.When I first started noticing how fixated on this woman he was getting, I thought to myself: Oh well, who cares, live and let live, screw and let screw, whatever.”
“And now?”
“It’s getting to me.It’s having a perverse effect.”
“Oh yes, I know how that works.You’re starting to fall in love with him again, right?”
“Something like that.I don’t require a lot ofcare and feeding, you know.I don’t need to be adored, or ravished, I don’t need little poems slipped under my pillow, or a rose on my breakfast tray.But, I really do notwant him to leave me.That really doesn’t work for me.”
“We’re such idiots.”
“It’s not as ifI felloutoflove with Daniel.”
“I know.”
“I’m used to him, with all the good and bad that implies.Anyhow, we had sort ofan arrangement.We’re both moderates, you know what I mean?We hate excess, neither ofus even likesRomeo and Juliet.I feel be-trayed in that way, too.Suddenly, I sense this willingness in him to be crucified on passion’s cross.Ugh.He’s becoming a different person.”
“And then there’s the small matter ofRuby,”says Lorraine.“I thought he was so devoted to her.”
“I’m not even thinking about that.He’s not going toleaveme.He would never do anything to upset Ruby.He worships her.”
“What’s the café-au-lait absentee husband like?”
“His name is Hampton.”
“Oh God, they have the best names.Hampton what?”
“Welles.He’s Ivy League, Wall Street, so bourgeois he makes Martha Stewart seem like Karen Finley.”
“And does he think O.J.is innocent, too? It would be interesting to find out.”
“I don’t know.O.J.may be a little dark for Hampton’s taste.”
Just then, Kate hears wracking coughs coming from Ruby’s bedroom.She has been in and out ofrespiratory sickness ever since the storm—the ride home on the snowmobile did her in.
“Can you hold on for a minute?”Kate asks.
”Did you get another call? Don’t take it.”
“No, Ruby’s coughing her brains out.I better look in on her.”
“Where’s Danny boy?”
“Out.I’m not actually sure where.”As soon as Kate says this, two things occur:Ruby’s coughing stops, and a heavy, soggy sense ofemo-tional panic settles over Kate.“Oh good,”she says,“false alarm,”while in fact she is just now feeling her first intimations ofreal alarm.
“He’s out and you have no idea where?”Lorraine says.“That’s not likehim.”
“Well, lately it has been.”
“There’s nothing to do up there, nowhere to go.Where does he go?”
“There’s this place in town, a bar.Lately he’s been going there.”
“A bar?”Lorraine’s voice is full ofthe kind ofscorn that tries to masquerade as incredulity.
“It’s not that extraordinary, is it?”Kate tries to sound bemused, but her blood has begun to race.She has an impulse to simply slam the phone down and get in the car, surprise the little fucker right in his new night-time haunt.Yet just as she is about to hang up, she realizes the reason she has called Lorraine in the first place.“We had this monster snowstorm,”
she says.
“I know, I saw it on Fox.Weird.”
“We didn’t have electricity for four days, no heat, no water, nothing.
And we were trapped here, no cars were moving, every road was closed.”
“You should really move back to NewYork.”
“Last year a water main exploded under your street and your entire apartment was filled with mud.”
“True, but at least I had heat.I had lights, I could read.And I could leave, I could go to my health club, I could have a watercress-and-goat-cheese salad at Cafe Luxembourg.”
“It was sort offun, getting back to basics, the three ofus camping out.
And when the snow stopped the sun came out and it was sort ofmild.”
“I don’t ever want to be in a position where I’m glad the sun cameout.”
“But for the first day I was here alone, andthatwas a little weird.”
“Where were Daniel and Ruby?”
“At Iris’s.”
“You’re fucking kidding.”
“And while I was here alone, some boys broke into the house.”
“What are you talking about?”
“There’s a home for delinquent boys, mostly black kids from the city.
Some escaped during the power outage and they ended up here.”
“Oh my God.Are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m fine.They never even saw me.They came in to use the facilities.”
“They shit in your house?”
“In the toilet.”
“Well, that was civilized.”
Kate is about to say something and realizes her voice is suddenly not available to her, it seems submerged.
“Were you hiding?”Lorraine asks.“Where were you?”
Kate takes a deep breath.Okay,she thinks.Steady.“I was pretty scared,”she says.“These were not nice boys.”
“They could have raped you, killed you.”
“I suppose.A tree hit the house and they ran like hell.”
“A tree.”Lorraine snorts contemptuously.“And Daniel was at Iris’shouse.”
“That could not be helped.He couldn’t get home.”
“The poor lamb.Listen to me, Kate.Okay?”
“No, please.Don’t be smarter than me about this, don’t open my eyes to the obvious, I don’t want to be pummeled with your insight.”
“I’m just—”
“I know.I’m just not ready.Anyhow, I’m getting out ofhere.”
“Where are you going?”
“To that bar Daniel’s been hanging out at.Windsor Bistro.”
“Good.And ifhe’s there with her—”
“He’s not.”
“Just remember, ifO.J.can get away with it, so can you.”
After hanging the phone up, Kate sits in her chair and finishes her glass ofwine, waiting for her pulse to stop pounding.She goes to the window at the front ofthe house—the repairman who replaced the panes did a sloppy job and there are smears ofputty on the mullions—and looks out at the night.The sky is a steep dome ofbright stars.The moon is pale and wafer-thin;it casts its light down on the split and top-pled trees around the house;a little patch ofbrightness reflects on the chrome ofher car’s back bumper.