The telephone rang.
Bloom.
They had found her.
I went into the kitchen and snatched the receiver from the wall phone.
“Hello?” I said.
“Dad?”
“Hello, honey, how are you?”
“Okay,” Joanna said. “I guess.”
“What are you doing?”
“Watching television. Mom went to dinner with Oscar the Bald.”
“Anything good on?”
“Is there ever?” She hesitated. “Dad,” she said, “what’d you find out?”
“About what, honey?”
“About... you know... the school.”
“Oh yeah, right,” I said.
“I won’t have to go away, will I, Dad?”
Dr. Pearson had mentioned that I was doing Sarah a great disservice by supporting her delusion. Should I now support Joanna’s hope that she would not be sent away to school in the fall? Should I become the White Knight she desperately wished I could be?
“Dad?” she said. “Did you work it out?”
She was fourteen years old.
I took a deep breath.
“Honey,” I said, “I’ll talk to your mother, of course, but—”
“I thought you might have talked to her already.”
“I did. And both Frank and I went over the separation agreement...”
“Well, what do you mean, ‘talk’ to her, then?”
“Talk to her again. But, honey, if she’s intent on sending you away—”
“Don’t say it, Dad.”
“Joanna... there’s nothing on earth I can do to stop her.”
“Aw shit, Dad!” she said, and hung up.
I looked at the telephone receiver. I sighed heavily. I debated calling her back, but instead I put the receiver back on the cradle and went out into the living room again. I turned on the pool lights. Outside, a mild breeze rattled the palms. I felt lonelier than I ever had in my life.
I thought about Sarah again, out there someplace.
“How old is Joanna?”
“Fourteen.”
“Oh my. Almost a woman.”
“Almost.”
“What color hair does she have?”
“Would you mind telling me what this fascination with hair is?”
“Well, your wife Susan had brown hair...”
“Still does.”
“And your girlfriend Aggie had black hair...”
“Yes?”
“So what color hair does your daughter have?”
“Blonde.”
“Ah. Like me.”
“Yes.”
“Is she pretty?”
“I think she’s beautiful.”
“Do you think I’m beautiful?”
“I think you’re very beautiful.”
“Am I more beautiful than Joanna?”
“You’re both very beautiful.”
“Who else do I have to worry about?”
“You don’t have to worry about anyone.”
“Not even Joanna?”
“Of course not. I want you to meet her one day. Once this is all over with...”
“Oh, I’d love to meet her!”
I remembered her kiss.
Fierce... urgent... angry... passionate.
“You’d better be true to me, Matthew.”
The telephone rang again.
I carried my martini glass into the kitchen and picked up the receiver.
Joanna was sobbing.
“How can you do this to me?” she said.
“Honey, if there were any way in the world—”
“Why’d you sign something that gave Mom the right to—”
“Now you sound like Frank,” I said.
“This isn’t funny, Dad!” Joanna warned.
“I know it isn’t. But, sweetie—”
“Yeah, sweetie, sure,” Joanna said, sobbing.
“I’ll talk to her again, I really will. I’m sure she doesn’t want you going that far away, either.”
“You’re both trying to get rid of me, is what it is,” Joanna said.
“Honey, we both love you to death.”
“I’ll bet,” she said.
“We’ll talk it over,” I said. “We’ll try to work something out.”
“Uh-huh.”
“We will, darling.”
“You promise you’ll work something out?”
“No, I can’t promise that, Joanna. But I promise I’ll do my best.”
“Okay,” she said, and sighed.
But she had stopped sobbing.
“You all right now?” I asked.
“I suppose.” She was silent for a moment. Then she said, “I hate Oscar the Bald. Do you think that’s why Mom wants me to go away to Massachusetts? So she can be alone with him?”
“Honey,” I said, “would you want to be alone with Oscar the Bald?”
Joanna burst out laughing.
“I’ll talk to her, okay?” I said.
“Okay,” she said. “Thanks, Dad, I love you a lot.”
“I love you, too,” I said.
“G’night,” she said, and hung up.
I went back into the living room. I sat in one of the easy chairs facing the pool, and drained my martini glass. I debated mixing another one. I decided against it. I wished with all my heart that Joanna could be here with me tonight — but of course I had signed that goddamned settlement agreement.
“Joanna lives with her mother. The way I used to live with my mother. Isn’t that right, Matthew?”
“Yes.”
“Where do they live, anyway, Matthew?”
“Out on Stone Crab Key.”
“Will we be passing the house?”
“No, no.”
“Pity, I wanted to see it I feel I know her already. Your daughter. You did promise I’d meet her one day, Matthew. You haven’t forgotten that, have you?”
I had not forgotten it.
But I doubted now that Sarah would ever meet my daughter.
The telephone rang again.
I went into the kitchen and picked up the receiver.
“Dad?”
Joanna’s voice. High and hysterical.
“Dad, there’s somebody in the yard!”
“What?”
“Can you get here right—”
And suddenly there was the sound of splintering glass.
“Daddy!” she shouted.
Silence.
And someone replaced the receiver with a small, deadly click.
“Joanna has blonde hair, like mine... Daddy’s bimbo was blonde, too, you know... Or so they tell me. She was supposed to be blonde, isn’t that right, Chris? My daddy’s bimbo? Isn’t she supposed to be blonde in my alleged delusion?”
Daddy’s bimbo was blonde, and my daughter was blonde, and I was Sarah’s shining White Knight.
She knew my former wife’s name. “Do you call her Susan or Sue or Suzie?” And she knew my daughter lived with Susan on Stone Crab Key. “Where do they live, anyway, Matthew?” And Susan was listed in the phone book.