“Oops, sorry,” Judy said, but nobody took notice except a strawberry-blond woman with bright blue eyes. Tall and very pregnant in a black linen maternity dress, she stood alone by the door, examining the bad prints.
“You needn’t be sorry,” the woman said, with a heavy Irish accent. A light sprinkling of freckles covered her nose, and her skin was a poreless pale pink.
“I was looking for the ladies’ room.”
“It’s down the hall.” The woman leaned over, her blue eyes dancing with mischief. “I made the same mistake. You’re not Italian either, are you?”
“How could you tell?” Judy smiled, nervous that the Irish woman would recognize her.
“Why, you’re nice and tall, too, and I can see under your scarf that you’re a blonde.”
Renewed sobbing surged loudly from the groups of women in the corners, like tears in stereo. Judy considered leaving the room, but the woman was so obviously alone, a clear outsider. Judy leaned to her and whispered, “We’re the only women in here not crying. I think it’s the price of admission.”
The woman laughed softly. “Now that’s the difference between the Italians and Irish. We Irish know how to throw a grand wake. Everybody has a good time. The whole point is not to cry.” Her eyes lit up. “Wakes last for days in Ireland. County Galway, where my family’s from. Do you know it?”
“No,” Judy told her, counting it as a measure of the woman’s naïveté that she would expect an American to be familiar with Ireland’s counties. Judy had always felt guilty she knew no geography but America’s own.
“It’s a lovely place, lovely. I’m from a town called Loughrea. I came over only two years ago, after I met my husband, Kevin. I’m Theresa, by the way.”
“Great to meet you,” Judy said simply, and got away without supplying her own name, in Theresa’s enthusiasm for someone to talk to.
“Well, my husband, Kevin, he’s American. He came to town on holiday, and he was looking for the ATM machine. You know, the MAC machine, you call it? And I told him it was right in front of him, pretty as you please, on Dublin Road. We fell in love right there.”
“‘Where’s the MAC?’ Quite a pickup line,” Judy said with a smile, and Theresa laughed warmly.
“It was. We got married and now we’re having the baby, and it’s been grand.” She paused, uneasy. “Not that it hasn’t taken some getting used to, a new marriage and all, and the way things are over here. Of course I’d read so much about America, we have all your TV shows and movies and your books, and I thought I knew what to expect. But then again, you can never tell what turn your life will take, can you?” The woman shook her head as if in a memory, and a sudden wetness sprang to her eyes.
“You want to sit down?” Judy asked, taken aback, and helped the pregnant woman to a shaky seat near the door.
“I’m sorry, I’m being so silly. It must be my hormones.”
“No, that’s okay.” Judy yanked for a Kleenex from a box left on the seats and handed it to her. “You’re in the crying room. You might as well cry.”
Suddenly the lounge door opened, and Judy froze. John Coluzzi stuck his head inside, as if he were looking for someone. He hovered right over Judy’s shoulder, so close she could smell his heavy aftershave. Was he looking for her? She could be dead if he found her. She threw her arm around Theresa and quickly yanked her close, comforting her. Judy hoped they’d look like more crying women in the crying room.
Coluzzi lingered a minute more, but Theresa only cried harder, and Judy hugged her tight. Then Judy heard the door close behind her back. Coluzzi must have gone, leaving behind the faint scent of Calvin Klein.
Theresa was saying, through her tears, “You’re so nice. It’s so nice . . . to make a friend here. Americans . . . or maybe Philadelphians, I don’t know . . . they’re not always so friendly to new people.”
“I know what you mean,” Judy said, and she did. She had made only one friend in Philly, Mary, but she had always blamed herself. Maybe she should start blaming other people, which would be easier.
“Everything’s going so wrong, just when it should be . . . so right. We’re under so much strain now, and my hormones, the doctor said . . . they’re going crazy.”
“I’m sure things will get better.” Judy held Theresa while her shoulders shook with sobs, her heart going out to her, especially because Theresa had just saved her life. “And soon you’ll have a new baby.”
“But we’re in trouble . . . with money, I mean. Things are so expensive here. Not like at home. I think I’m just so . . . what do you call it? Homesick.”
This feeling Judy didn’t know. “I’m sure it’ll pass.”
“We’re just building our new house . . . and my husband’s business was going so well. He was doing work for the Coluzzis . . . and we were finally going to get out of the apartment . . . and we need, you know, a nursery.” Theresa heaved a mighty sob. “They were even talking . . . about buying his company. They wanted to . . . expand or something, and they wanted to pay so much. But then . . . Angelo Coluzzi got killed and now there’s . . . a lawsuit against the company and I don’t know what’s going to happen. We could lose everything.”
Judy felt stricken. Theresa must be the wife of one of the subcontractors. Judy had caused all this pain, to a pregnant woman. She didn’t focus on the fact that making the Coluzzis’ life a living hell meant making a living hell of lives like Theresa’s. “I’m so sorry,” Judy said, meaning it.
“Kevin says not to worry, but I can’t help it. We can’t lose the new house, not with the baby on the way.”
Judy’s thoughts raced ahead. As bad as she felt for Theresa, maybe this was the opportunity she’d been waiting for. What was it Roser had said? Coluzzi won’t hire Irish or black unless they have to. Was Theresa the wife of McRea, the paving contractor? Judy couldn’t remember his first name from the complaint. “It must be so frightening for you,” she said.
“It is awful . . . and it couldn’t come at a worse time. I don’t dare tell my parents for fear they’ll tell me . . . to leave Kevin and come right home. I want to go home, but I don’t want . . . to lose my marriage.”
Judy grabbed the entire box of Kleenex, hating that now she had an ulterior motive. But she had a job to do, and lives were at stake. “Please stay calm, but I have to tell you something surprising. I think I can help you and your husband.”
“What . . . did you say?”
“I’m a lawyer, and I can help you. I know about the lawsuit, and your husband isn’t the target.” Judy handed her a fresh tissue, and Theresa dabbed at her eyes.
“Of course he isn’t. He can’t be. He hardly knows . . . the Coluzzi family. We don’t know . . . any of these people here. He never worked for them before.”
“I figured that.”
Theresa blinked her puzzled eyes free of tears. “But however do you know that?”
“My name is Judy Carrier, and I’m the lawyer who filed the suit.”
Theresa gasped, but the sound got lost in the wailing broadcasted in Dolby sound from the two far corners of the room. Theresa began to open her mouth, as if to yell or call someone for help, but Judy grabbed her hand and held on to it.
“No! Please don’t betray me. These people will kill me.”
“What?” Theresa’s eyes searched Judy’s, even through the sunglasses. “What are you talking about?”
“They’re killers. They’re dangerous people. They’re not what they seem, to you anyway.”