Cinderella

8

Matthew was still steaming.

Back some time ago, before they’d got to know each other better, he’d had the same kind of confrontation with Bloom. Twice, in fact. The first time was while Bloom was investigating the murder of Vicky Miller and the kidnapping of her daughter, Allison. Bloom had told him — on the phone, in much the same way Rawles had told him on the phone — to bug off. What he’d said, actually, was:

“Counselor” (and the word counselor rankled because it was more often than not used sarcastically even among contesting attorneys in a courtroom) “it would be nice to have your word that from this minute on you won’t be running all over the city of Calusa questioning anybody you think might have some connection with this case, as I would hate to have the blood of a six-year-old girl on my hands if I were you, Counselor.”

Matthew had said, “Stop talking to me as if I’m a fucking Los Angeles private eye.”

That was the first time Bloom had felt it necessary to chastise Matthew. The second time was more recently. It had, in fact, been shortly before Matthew took the bullet in his shoulder. And yesterday morning was the third time, only it hadn’t been Bloom, a friend, delivering the warning, it had been a detective Matthew knew only casually. And he was still annoyed. He had not, to his knowledge, done anything to jeopardize or compromise the police investigation into the death of Otto Samalson. He had not spirited away evidence, he had not forewarned witnesses or suspects, he had done nothing whatever to warrant Rawles’s blunt reprimand. “You’ve been busy.” It occurred to him that Bloom had once used those exact words. With much the same sarcastic lilt. “You’ve been busy.” Maybe all cops said “You’ve been busy” when they meant “Fuck off.” And the reprimand was even more annoying because Matthew had been calling to give the man information, the make and color of the automobile that had followed Otto out of the Seven-Eleven parking lot last Sunday night. Matthew hadn’t sought this information, it had come to him. And he had immediately turned it over to the police. And had been told not to talk to anyone else. He was tempted to call Grown-ups Inc. and ask them to please get Rawles off his back.

Grown-ups Inc.

Another game he and Susan had invented. Long long ago. When they were still in love. On the way to her house that Friday afternoon, he thought about that game. And wondered if Susan remembered it.

His annoyance began to dissipate as he drove out toward Stone Crab Key. It was impossible to stay angry on a day like today. A day like today reminded him of a Chicago summer. The sky clear and piercingly blue, the sun shining, the temperature back to what it should have been in June, a pleasant eighty degrees at 5:35 P.M. (or so his car radio had just informed him), the humidity a comfortable forty-two percent. Driving westward across the Cortez Causeway, Calusa Bay billowing with sails on either side of the bridge, he thought for perhaps the thousandth time how wonderful it was to be living down here. And thought of the plans he’d made for himself and Joanna this weekend. And grinned from ear to ear.

He felt peculiar going up to the front door of the house he used to live in. Usually, he parked at the curb and tooted the horn and Joanna popped out a moment later. Today, he went up the walk, and rang the front doorbell, and looked over at the orange trees he himself had planted six years ago, and wondered if old Reggie Soames still lived next door, and rang the bell again, and Susan’s voice came from the back of the house, where the master bedroom was, “Matthew? Is that you?” She sounded surprised. Had she forgotten she’d invited him for a drink?

“Yes!” he called back. “Am I early?”

A long silence. Then:

“The door’s open, come in.”

He twisted the doorknob, and the door sure enough wasn’t locked, and he walked into a living room he remembered, different furniture in it now, she’d completely redecorated after she kicked him out, but familiar nonetheless. He’d been in this house only once since that night two years ago. He stood in the living room now, and looked out through the sliding glass doors to where he used to dock his sailboat. The Windbag. He had named it over Susan’s protests. She hated sailing and had wanted to call it The Wet Blanket. The boat had cost seven thousand dollars used, which hadn’t been bad for a twenty-five-footer that slept four comfortably. The boat and the Karmann Ghia he still drove were virtually the only two things he’d got out of the divorce. Susan had got everything else: the house, the Mercedes-Benz, his daughter, his clock collection, everything. Matthew had the Karmann Ghia repainted and sold the boat a month after the final decree. Oddly, he hadn’t been sailing since.

“Matthew,” Susan called, “fix yourself something, will you? I’ll be right out.”

“Where’s Joanna?” he shouted, but got no answer. He went to the bar, found it still well-stocked, poured himself a Canadian Club on the rocks, shouted “Can I fix you something?” and was surprised when he heard her voice behind him, almost at his shoulder, saying, I’m here, don’t yell.”

He turned.

She was wearing a white terry robe.

Her hair was wet.

She was smiling.

No lipstick on her mouth.

No makeup at all.

Susan fresh from the shower and smelling of soap.

“Hi,” she said, “didn’t Joanna call you?”

“No,” he said, puzzled. “Why? Is something wrong?”

“Well, that depends. Damn it, she promised.”

“What is it?”

“Well... she’s on her way to Palm Beach.”

“She’s on her way to where?” Matthew said. He was almost amused. This was beginning to sound like the old Susan. Keep the kid away from him any which way possible, make Life with Father as difficult as...

“This wasn’t my idea,” she said at once, “I promise you, Matthew. She called me from Diana Silver’s house all excited because Diana’s parents were going to Palm Beach for the weekend, and they’d invited her along, and she wanted to know could she go with them. This was eleven o’clock or so, I would have called you myself, but I was already late for an appointment, and I had an open house to set up and a hundred other things to do. I told her to call you and get your permission. When I got back here tonight, there was a note on the kitchen table saying she’d be home late Sunday night. I assumed she’d called you and you’d said it was okay.”

“Well, I had three closings today,” Matthew said. “I was out of the office till four-thirty. Maybe she—”

“I’m sure she would have left a message.”

“I didn’t get any.”

“Then she didn’t call.”

“Maybe she was afraid I’d say no.” Matthew shrugged. “The Father’s Day weekend, you know.”

“Maybe.” Susan really did look troubled. “Anyway, I wasn’t expecting you. I figured...”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, and put his drink down on the bar. “If you’ve made other plans...”

“No, that’s not it,” Susan said, “it’s just... I was in the shower... I must look like a drowned cat.”

“You look beautiful,” he said.

“Sure, sure, sweet talker.”

There was an awkward silence. She made an abrupt motion, as if she were about to raise her hand to fluff her hair, the way women will do when they feel they are being observed or admired or both, and then aborted the motion and shrugged girlishly and said, “Did I hear you offer me a drink?”

“Name it,” he said.

“A Beefeater martini, on the rocks,” she said.

He looked at her.

“Yeah,” she said, and grinned.

When they were married, their most frequent argument was what Matthew had labeled the Beefeater Martini Argument. It had been Susan’s contention that Matthew never got drunk when he drank, for example, two Scotches with soda or two anythings with soda, but that he always got drunk or fuzzy or furry or slurry (these were all Susan’s words) when he had two martinis, especially two Beefeater martinis. The magic word Beefeater somehow added more potency to the drink.

But now, two years and much gin under the bridge later, here was Susan asking for the evil potion that changed men to furry, fuzzy beasts and worked God knew what transformation on nice Presbyterian girls from the state of Illinois.

“Very dry, with two olives,” Susan said.

He began mixing the drink.

“I hate it when she breaks her word,” Susan said. “She’s growing up so fast, isn’t she? She’ll be a woman before we know it. Then will we have troubles,” she said, and rolled her eyes.

He did not miss the word we.

Silently, he mixed the drink.

“You’re right, it must have been because of Father’s Day,” Susan said. “She was probably embarrassed to ask.”

“I’m sure,” Matthew said, and handed her the glass.

“Thank you,” Susan said. “What it is, Matthew, Diana’s brother is home from Duke for the summer, and he was going to Palm Beach with the family, and I think Joanna has a bit of a crush on him, and so...” She rolled her eyes again, let the sentence trail, shrugged, raised her glass, and said, “Shall we drink to Electra’s demise?”

Matthew smiled.

“But you didn’t pour one for yourself,” she said.

“I’m drinking Canadian,” he said and lifted his glass from the bar.

“I thought you drank—”

“They make me furry and fuzzy,” he said.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “Did you mix enough for two?”

“I did.”

“Then join me,” she said. “If we’re going to get furry and fuzzy, we ought to do it together.”

He poured himself a martini, and dropped two olives into the glass.

“That’s much better,” she said, and nodded.

They raised their glasses. They clinked them together. They drank.

“Shall we go outside?” Susan said. “Sit by the pool?”

There did not used to be a pool here when Matthew shared the house with her. The settlement money had bought one. Or the alimony payments. Or both. He tried not to feel bitter about the alimony payments. Bitterness could spoil a good martini. He followed her out to the pool. She was wearing only the terry cloth robe, hardly the sexiest garment in the world, and she was barefoot, no heels to give her ass and her breasts a perky, sexy lift — but somehow she looked sexy enough.

They sat in lounge chairs beside the pool. Matthew figured the pool and patio had cost at least eighteen grand.

“You really think she was afraid to call me, huh?” he said.

“Oh, no question.”

“She should’ve put Grown-ups Inc. on the case.”

“Oh my God!” Susan said. “Do you remember that, too?”

“I was thinking of it on the way out here,” he said, smiling, nodding.

“Grown-ups Inc., that was a century ago,” she said, and fell silent.

On the canal beyond the pool, a fish jumped.

He couldn’t remember now who had first come up with the notion. As with most of the games they had played when they were married (had they really played games, had there really been fun?), it had probably been a collaborative effort, one of them saying something that led to an elaboration that led to an embellishment that led to a fillip, and there you were! Grownups Inc.

The way Grown-ups Inc. worked was really quite simple. If, for example, your building superintendent wasn’t sending up enough heat, and you were either afraid or embarrassed to call him and demand more heat, you called Grown-ups Inc. instead, and you said, “I don’t know what I’m going to do, there’s not enough heat in the apartment, and I have a three-year-old daughter—”

That would’ve been about right for when they’d invented Grown-ups Inc. Joanna had been about three, and they were still living in Chicago where it got damn cold in the wintertime and where if you didn’t have heat you could freeze to death.

“—and the apartment is like an igloo.”

“We’ll take care of it,” the man from Grown-ups Inc. would say.

And he would call the super and tell him, “This is Grownups Inc., we’re calling for Matthew Hope, we want the heat turned higher in his apartment at once, thank you very much.”

The uses of Grown-ups Inc. were manifold.

Need theater tickets? An indoor tennis court from five to six? A dinner for eight served on your veranda? A birthday telegram, Valentine’s Day chocolates, Mother’s Day flowers, Father’s Day tie?

Grown-ups Inc. would take care of all or any of these things painlessly. Grown-ups Inc. was premised on the sound concept that everyone needed a grown-up he could turn to. Marine generals needed grown-ups they could turn to. Women activists needed grown-ups. The president of the United States needed a grown-up. Terrorists needed grown-ups. In Grownups Inc. there was a grown-up for everyone, a grown-up to serve every need. Want to ask for a raise? Grown-ups Inc. would call your boss. Want to plan a trip to Bombay or Siam? No need to call a travel agent. Grown-ups Inc. would take care of it because Grown-ups Inc. took care of everything.

In fantasy, they had used Grown-ups Inc. more times than they could count. There was once a rat the size of a zeppelin in the Chicago apartment and the moment Susan saw it, she yelled, “Call Grown-ups Inc., quick!” Out on The Windbag one day, they were caught in a sudden squall that threatened to capsize the boat, and Matthew — clinging to the wheel for dear life — grinned weakly, and told Susan to get on the radio to Grown-ups Inc.

There was nothing Grown-ups Inc. could not do.

“Do you know...?” Susan said softly, and then stopped, and shook her head.

“What?” he said.

“When...” She shook her head again.

“Tell me.”

“When I... when I found out that night about you and... shit, I still can’t say her name.”

“Aggie,” he said.

“Aggie, yes,” Susan said, and sighed. “When I found out about her that night, I... I... went all to pieces, you know, I didn’t know what to do. And I... I thought... when Matthew comes home, we’ll have to call Grown-ups Inc. They’ll solve it for us.” She nodded bleakly. “But of course that’s not what happened, is it? Because there isn’t any Grown-ups Inc.”

“We’re Grown-ups Inc.,” Matthew said.

“The way we used to be Santa Claus,” Susan said. “For Joanna.”

“Yes,” he said.

They were silent for several moments.

“Do you think Grown-ups Inc. could have saved it?” she asked. “Do you think we could have saved it, Matthew?”

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “There was so much anger.”

“There still is, don’t kid yourself,” Susan said and smiled. “I still think of her as The Cunt. Aggie What’s-Her-Name. The Cunt.”

“You’re different,” he said.

“How?”

“Two years ago, you never would have used that word.”

“Maybe you didn’t know me two years ago.”

“Maybe not. You used to call your period The Curse.”

“I still do. Some things never change, Matthew.”

“We’ve changed, Susan.”

“Older,” she said.

“For sure.”

“I’m thirty-six,” she said. “That makes me middle-aged, doesn’t it?”

“Hardly,” he said, and smiled.

“You should see some of the gorgeous creatures in my exercise class,” she said. “If you ever want to feel ancient, go to an exercise class.”

“Frank says the reason exercise classes are so popular is because of the costume. It makes women feel like Bob Fosse dancers. Tell them they’d have to come to class in faded blue jeans and a gray sweatshirt, and enrollment would drop off by half. That’s what Frank says.”

“Frank,” she said, and nodded, as though fondly remembering someone half-forgotten.

They both fell silent again. A bird called somewhere. Another bird answered.

“Are there any more of these little mothers?” she asked, and extended her empty glass to him.

“Jack Lemmon,” he said. “The Apartment. The scene in the bar.”

“We were still living in Chicago when we saw it.”

“Yes.”

She nodded again. Taking her glass he went into the house familiarly, as if he had never left it, and walked to the bar, and poured what was left of the martinis equally into her glass and his. When he came back out onto the patio again, she was sitting with her face turned toward the pool and the canal beyond, one leg extended, one leg bent at the knee. He felt an extraordinarily sharp urge to place his hand on the inside of her thigh. He sat instead, in the lounge beside hers, and handed her one of the glasses.

“We musn’t drink so much that we won’t know what we’re doing,” she said, sipping at the drink.

“We can always call Grown-ups Inc. later on,” he said.

“Yes, and ask them what we did.”

“The eyes and ears of the world.”

“The mouth of the world,” Susan said.

“I felt like calling them yesterday,” he said, and told her all about his telephone encounter with Detective Cooper Rawles. She listened intently. It was like the old days, when he used to come home from the office and relate to her one problem or another and she listened because she cared, she still cared. It was like then.

“So what are you going to do?” she asked.

“Just what I’ve been doing,” he said. “If there are questions I want answered, I’m going to ask them.”

“Despite the warning?”

“I don’t feel I’m interfering with his case,” Matthew said.

“But that’s not it,” Susan said. “Even if you were interfering, you’d continue, wouldn’t you?”

“Well,” he said, smiling, “as an officer of the court, I don’t think I’d knowingly obstruct justice or impede the progress of an investi—”

“But you’d continue.”

“Yes.”

“Because you enjoy it,” Susan said.

“Well, I...”

“You do, Matthew.”

“I guess I do.”

“Why don’t you simply learn all there is to learn about criminal law—?”

“Well, there’s a lot to—”

“—and start practicing it?”

He looked at her.

There was a shrug on her face.

Eyebrows lifted.

Brown eyes wide.

Questioning.

Why not practice criminal law?

The simplicity of it.

“Just like that, huh?” he said.

“Why not?” she said. “I have a feeling you find it more interesting than real estate.”

“Anything’s more interesting than—”

“Or divorce or negligence or malpractice or—”

“Yes, but...”

“So do it,” she said, and this time actually shrugged.

Why not, he thought, and leaned over and kissed her quickly on the cheek. “Thank you,” he said.

“That’s a thank-you?” she said, and reached up to him, and put her arms around his neck and drew him down to her on the lounge. For a moment, they teetered awkwardly, Matthew on the edge of the lounge, struggling for purchase, Susan trying to make room for him, the normal clumsiness of foreplay exaggerated by the suddenness of her move and his unprepared reaction to it. Like groping adolescents — and perhaps this was good because it, too, reminded them of another time long ago — they shifted weight, bumped hips, tangled arms, and finally settled, or more accurately collapsed onto the lounge in an approximate position of proximity, Susan on her side, the robe pulled back to expose her left flank, Matthew seminestled into her, his left arm pinned under his body, his right arm draped loosely over the curving arc of her hip, their lips at last meeting abruptly and in surprise.

Later, he would try to understand that kiss.

They had kissed many times before. Kissed as true adolescents in steamy embrace, when kissing was all she would permit and therefore the sole expression of their passion. Kissed after kissing had become a prelude to heavy petting, something to be got through hastily, like the dull passages of a novel, something to be skimmed or skipped entirely, merely the necessary overture to nipples and breasts and the exciting electric touch of nylon panties and the crispness beneath and the moistness below. Kissed only perfunctorily in the waning years of their marriage, on the cheek in greeting or farewell, passionlessly on the lips in bed before what had become a mechanical act. Kissed last Sunday night hurriedly and somewhat frantically, eager to get to the real thing, both of them fearful of what they were about to do and simultaneously afraid they wouldn’t get to do it before one or the other had a change of mind or heart.

Now...

It was in many respects a first kiss.

First in the sense that it brought back to each of them, in a rush of memory, the actual first time they kissed in Chicago, on the doorstep of her house, a porchlight glowing, the sounds of summer insects everywhere around them, I had a good time, Matthew, So did I, their lips tentatively brushing, clinging, her arms coming up around his neck, his hands in the small of her back, pulling her close, into his immediate erection, Jesus, she said breathlessly, and pulled away and looked fiercely into his eyes, and kissed him again quickly and hurried into the house.

But first in another sense as well.

First in that for perhaps the only time in their separate adult lives, they brought to the simple act of kissing each other an expertise they had learned not only from each other but from others as well, so that the mere anatomical joining of two orbicularis oris muscles in a state of contraction became something much more intense and heated and all-consuming.

They broke away.

She said what she had said back in Chicago, more years ago than he could count.

“Jesus.”

Breathlessly.

And then:

“Let’s go inside.”