“This stays right here,” Mo said. “I don’t want anybody hearing this, and then in two weeks thinking I’m a world-class bonehead.”
Tim agreed. He couldn’t make any more sense of this than Mo. They parted, joined in a weird compact, two old guys afraid they could be slipping.
15
Heather hadn’t moved out when Evon returned to the condo, last Sunday. She had opened a suitcase on their bed, but had gotten no further than that. In her nightgown, Heather was sitting on the covers in a butterfly pose, soles of her feet pressed together, her blonde hair flowing smoothly over her shoulders. She began weeping as soon as Evon appeared at the door to the room. Evon had no doubt that Heather had staged the whole thing, laid the case out and dressed herself in a casually revealing way.
‘You have to leave,’ Evon told her.
Heather begged, repeated her pledges of love, but ended up enraged. Evon couldn’t throw her out of her own home, she said. Heather was ignoring many facts-that Evon had paid every penny for the place, that the title was solely in Evon’s name and that Heather hadn’t contributed her share of the assessment for months. Evon had told her she had until next Saturday to go.
Now, on Saturday morning, Evon arrived at the condo, full of resolve. She knocked but of course Heather didn’t answer. When Evon tried her key, she found Heather had changed the locks. Evon hammered on the door for only a second, then called a locksmith and the head of the condo association. In the meantime, she went to her safe-deposit box to retrieve the deed to the place to establish ownership. Evon had the smith drill out the cylinder while Rhona, the association president, and her husband, Harry, both of whom lived next door, came into the hallway for a second to watch. She could hear Heather on the other side, threatening to call the police. When the drilling didn’t cease, Heather opened the door, just as the tradesman had bored through. Heather was in a negligee again and offered Evon both keys.
“I would have given them to you. All you had to do was ask.”
Evon didn’t bother responding. Heather would say anything at this point, no matter how obviously untrue. Evon left the locksmith at work on a new dead bolt, and drove to Morton’s and bought the biggest duffel bag they had in the store. Back at the condo, she started packing Heather’s stuff in front of her. Evon slammed Heather’s dresses, still on the hangers, into the bag, knowing that Heather, who treated every garment as if it were made of Venetian glass, could not bear the sight. When Evon was done, she took the duffel down to Heather’s car and hoisted it onto the hood. Heather followed her, weeping and screaming, which gave Evon the opportunity she needed. She flew up the stairs-she could still outrun most people she knew-and closed the new click-lock. Heather was now on the other side of the door. She phoned Evon inside more than forty times in a row. Evon answered once: “If you don’t go away, I will have no choice but to call the police.” Half an hour later, while Heather was still calling every five minutes, Evon opened the door to toss out Heather’s purse. Once the pounding and the texting and phone calls had ceased, once the woman was finally gone, Evon sat on the living room floor in the space that had been happily theirs and howled.
When Evon opened the door for the Sunday paper, Heather was asleep in the hall, still in her negligee, using her handbag as a pillow. Evon called mutual friends and watched from the window as the two guided Heather to their car across the street. One had her by the waist, one by the shoulders. Heather was hysterical and they were nodding at every word. Evon was able to do nothing all day but talk to Merrel and watch the Pro Bowl. She was right, she knew, had done what she had to. All she needed now was someone to explain all that to her heart.
She was not much better when she went to work Monday morning. The loss, the drama, the sleeplessness had hollowed her out, made her feel as if the only part of her left intact was her skin. The vast entry of ZP’s headquarters was five stories high, glass on three sides, with giant seamless sheets of taupe granite cladding the only wall, which contained the building’s central service corridor. There workers in gray jumpsuits were on a lift hanging a huge crimson heart of woven roses as a Valentine decoration. It was too much for Evon. She barely made it into her office before closing the door so she could cry privately at her desk. She was still blubbering when Mitra, her assistant, buzzed to say Tim Brodie was here. Evon had totally forgotten the appointment. Tooley had copied all the old police reports for Ray Horgan, then handed the file back to Tim, asking that Evon and he, the ones with law-enforcement training, review the materials to determine if there were other leads they should follow.
Now she blew her nose and went to her purse for makeup. She looked horrible in the mirror of her compact. Crying with her contacts in had left her red-eyed, and the inflamed ridges of her nose made her resemble Rudolph. Tim took one glance at her once he came through her door and asked, “What happened?”
She tried to stiffen herself, but it didn’t work. She dropped her face into her hands.
“I’ve got girlfriend problems,” Evon said.
“I kind of took that from what you said when you were at my house. Anything requiring an old man’s advice?” You couldn’t resist Tim. There was a calm understanding that seemed part of his expression. Her father was this kind of man. Not as brainy. But centered. And thoughtful. And loving at the core. She needed to talk to somebody. Most of her friends knew Heather, too, and were caught in the middle. She’d largely been keeping all of it to herself.
Evon told him the story in short strokes.
“The worst part,” she said, “is me. What was I thinking? What was I doing with somebody like Heather? A model. A former fashion model. I just wanted to believe that somebody that beautiful could care for me. It kind of made me beautiful by association, I guess.”
“There’s nothing wrong with beautiful,” Tim said. “Not in and of itself.” Maria had been one of the most beautiful girls he’d met, with wide-set features and a perfect mouth. He’d loved her almost at once, because she seemed to take no notice of how pretty she was. “It’s kind of like money. It’s what it does to the people who have it or want it that’s the bad part.”
“How stupid can I be? I’m fifty years old.”
“People see what they want to see. You care to skip psychology class, then just remember that. Every time somebody falls in love, they create their own mythology to go with it. Don’t they? About her. And you. It makes it all bigger than life. Has to be, doesn’t it? To be so special. So this gal, used to be she was a goddess and so were you, and now she’s mortal.”
“Mortal? She’s crazy. Seriously disturbed. People warned me, too. And I didn’t listen.”
“Think you’re the first?” Tim had been standing in front of her desk, still in his overcoat, with his stocking cap in his hand. Little tufts of hair stood straight up on his head from removing his hat. He pushed the outerwear aside and fished around in the pocket of the brown Harris tweed jacket he always had on and came out with a piece of paper. “Copied this down a few months ago from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” He read it out.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
He handed over the torn scrap of paper, where he’d printed the quotation out in block letters. You had to love Tim. Eighty-one and studying Shakespeare and understanding it, too.
“You just happened to be carrying that around in your pocket?” Evon asked.