Dirty Blonde

CHAPTER 4

“Honey, I’m home!” Cate called out, and from the kitchen came a laugh. She let herself into the town house and shut the front door against the cold night.

The living room was dark, but light and music emanated from the kitchen. At this hour, her best friend, Gina Katsakis, would be washing leftover dishes and playing Mozart on the Bose. Of necessity, this household ran on a rigid schedule and listened 24-7 to The Magic Flute. And Gina, the biggest disco fan in their law school class, had adapted to that change in her life, and many others.

Cate set her purse and an aromatic brown bag on an end table, then slid out of her sheepskin coat, shook off the winter chill, and turned on a table lamp. The light illuminated a living room littered with toys, but it was no ordinary kiddie clutter. An orange Fisher Price sliding board had been upended, color flashcards and activity books had been strewn among dry Cheerios, and a Minute Maid juice box spilled over a denim beanbag chair. Cate picked up the juice box, then collected the flashcards and stowed them in the Reebok shoe box.

“Fante, stop cleaning!” Gina called from the kitchen.

“In a minute!” Cate picked up an activity book, lying open to a page titled ALL ABOUT ME, updated with a new photo. An adorable little boy with round brown eyes and shiny brown-black hair, whose bangs had been scissored off in a raggedy homemade cut, posed in front of a landscape found only in Wal-Mart’s photo department. A closer look at the picture revealed that the child’s gaze focused to the right of the camera, and his smile curved off-kilter. Cate reshelved the book, picked up a BabyGap sweatshirt, and set it on the couch.

“Stop now!”

“Gimme a minute!” Cate brushed the Cheerios back into an overturned Dixie cup and stood up, having improved the room only because it was so small, a far cry from Gina’s predivorce Tudor in suburban Villanova.

“Don’t make me yell!”

Cate grabbed the trash and brown bag and went into the kitchen, where Gina stood at the sink in an oversized pink cable knit, and mom jeans that couldn’t hide a killer body. She was emptying a large pot of boiling water into the basin, steaming up the window and filling the tiny kitchen with starchy fog. Spaghetti was on the menu tonight; it was the only thing Warren ate.

“I hate when you clean.” Gina turned from the sink, frowning in mock offense. Even ersatz emotion animated large brown eyes that flashed darkly, thick eyebrows like bold slashes, and a strong nose that fit full cheekbones and generous lips, easily coaxed into too-loud laughter. Gina Katsakis was Maria Callas with a JD.

“Hey, girl.” Cate threw out the trash and set the brown bag on the kitchen table, next to Warren. The three-year-old sat in his blue-padded high chair, taking no notice of her, his gaze focused on the steam blanketing the window. Cate knew he needed time to get used to her being here, so she didn’t greet him. Instead, she said, “Dinner is served.”

Gina scuffed to the table in tan Uggs and peeked in the brown bag. “What’d you bring me?”

“What I always bring. Crack cocaine.”

“Chicken curry!” Gina reached an eager hand inside the bag. “And it’s still hot!” She pulled out a white Chinese food carton and held it up with a broad smile. “You know what I love about this?”

“That it’s free?”

“No, the carton.” Gina pointed to the red letters on the white waxed pint. “The politically incorrect Asian font. Only a Chinese restaurant can get away with that. ‘We love our customers.’ How great is that? They love us!”

“How could they not?” Cate asked, but she didn’t have to say anything. She knew that her friend needed to talk, pent up from the day. It struck her that this was Gina’s Miller time.

“It’s like my dry cleaners.” Gina set the container down and unpacked the other one, then pint-sized rice boxes and tinfoil trays of egg rolls, with plastic tops. “The paper on the hanger says, ‘We heart our customers.’ I love that, too. I need more love in my business relationships. Don’t you?”

“I don’t even need love in my love relationships,” Cate answered, then caught herself, but Gina barely heard.

“You just missed a great Dr. Phil.”

“What about? People who love Dr. Phil too much?”

“No, fault-finders, like Mike. Remember he was like that? He found fault with everything. Marks on the walls, laundry on the floor. That’s the whole problem, nobody’s kind anymore.” Gina went to the drawer, retrieved silverware, and grabbed two prefolded napkins on the way back. “We got a new speech therapist today, and she’s horrible. Not anywhere near as dedicated as Lisa. The new one’s just mean. Cold.”

“That’s too bad.” Cate opened a cabinet and slid two dinner plates out of the stack, on autopilot. They set the table the same way, every time she came to babysit on Monday nights, moving around each other like an old couple. Their friendship had lasted almost fifteen years, spanning a marriage and divorce for each. They had even been each other’s maid of honor, and if they’d just married each other, they’d still be together.

Gina was saying, “You can’t have three different speech therapists in six months, not for a kid like him. How can he make progress, with that kind of turnover?”

“They probably don’t pay them enough.” Cate set the plates at their chairs, each catty-corner to Warren. She glanced at him, but he was still gazing at the cloudy window. “So you had some fussing in the living room today, huh?”

“Just a little. How’re you?” Gina lined up their silverware beside the napkins, and a wiry black curl fell onto her cheek. Her hair was growing in again, and she tucked the shiny strand into its stubby ponytail. “How’s the big trial?”

“Fine.” Cate went to the refrigerator and grabbed two cold Diet Cokes from the door. The white wire racks held only a few green peppers, a dozen eggs, a head of romaine, and a row of strawberry Yoplait. “You need food, honey.”

“They really dumb down the trial coverage and they don’t even mention you on the news. They just call you ‘the judge.’ They don’t even say ‘Judge Fante.’ They give Simone all the attention, and his preppy lawyer, who I want to smack. Every day, he’s holding press conferences.”

Cate returned with the Cokes. “I should’ve gagged him. It would’ve been my first gag order. Isn’t that sweet?”

“A girl never forgets her first.” Gina sat down behind her plate and opened a container.

“And how’s the baby?” Cate walked around the table to Warren, who still stared out the window. There was nothing there but bare trees obscured by vanishing steam. Cate lowered herself into the child’s field of vision before she spoke to him, as she’d been taught. “Hello, Warren.”

Warren didn’t respond. At about eighteen months old, this happy, bright, and communicative boy simply withdrew, growing quieter and more still, slipping bit by bit from everyone. He used to call Cate for a big hug and cling to her with a kitten’s tenacity, but that had stopped after a time and he’d gradually lost all speech. Cate believed he was in there, behind his eyes. “Warren? Hello, Warren.”

“He’s still got that ear infection. He’s not feeling so good.”

“Warren, hello,” Cate repeated, modulating her voice, because he was soothed by singsong phrases. He loved classical music, too, which was why the Mozart. She checked his plate, covered with cooling spaghetti. “He isn’t eating much.”

“He will.” Gina ate a forkful of chicken, dripping mustardy curry. “He had a hard day. After the bitchy speech therapist, we had to go to CVS to refill his Amox scrip. I wish they delivered.”

“Hello, Warren.” Cate knew he heard her. She ignored the constriction in her chest. “I’m very happy to see you.”

“It’s okay, let it go. Come and eat.”

“Warren, it’s you and me, after dinner.” Cate went to the table, pulled out a chair, and picked up the small container. White rice fell out in a solid block, reminding her of the sand molds she used to make down the shore with Warren. They’d pack dark, wet sand in a blue plastic castle and turn it over. He’d been creeped out by the filmy-shelled sand crabs that would burrow away, and frankly, so was Cate. It seemed so long ago, but it was only last year.

“I’m wondering if I should go tonight.” Gina broke up her rice with the side of her fork, eyeing Warren.

“Go to the Acme, my godchild needs food. Should I work with him or let it go tonight?”

“Work with him with the mirror, but just a little.” Gina shook her head. “I hate to give up even one night, or he’ll fall further behind.”

“Go and don’t worry about it.”

“Thanks.” Gina brightened and dug in for another forkful. “Hey, I might even take a shower before I leave. Lately, even the produce is looking at me funny. Also I could crash my cart into somebody single.”

Cate smiled. “So what happened today? Why’d he have a tantrum?”

“I tried to do floor time after the doc.” Gina popped open her Diet Coke and poured it into her glass, where it fizzed against the ice. “We were working on All About Me in the activity book.”

“That’s where you went wrong.” Cate scooped goopy yellow curry onto her rice. “You shoulda stuck with Faces and Places.”

“I know, right? I love Faces and Places!”

“All About Me is a ballbuster.”

“Only thing worse is You and Me.”

“You and Me will kill you.”

Gina burst into laughter. “If I were better at You and Me, I wouldn’t be divorced.”

They both laughed again, though it wasn’t true. Not every marriage survives a child with autism. When the doctors finally diagnosed Warren, Gina quit her job as an insurance lawyer and dedicated herself to finding the best early intervention programs. Her husband, Mike, had edged away and finally opted out of the marriage, though he sent support checks big enough to cover most expenses. Cate had set up a trust fund for Warren, contributing yearly. She’d tell Gina about it someday, if the girl ever stopped talking.

“So what’s going on in the outside world, Cate? How was your weekend? Did you do anything?”

“No. Just worked.”

“Hear anything from the old firm?”

“No, they don’t call. It would be inappropriate.”

“So who do you play with?”

“You.”

Gina didn’t smile. “What about that stockbroker, Graham What’s-his-name? Is he still calling?”

“I see him tomorrow night.”

“Yay!” Gina clapped, then stopped abruptly, her brown eyes wide. “Wait, is this the third date? It’s time for third-date sex! Woohooo!”

“Slow down, girl.” Cate hid her discomfort. She’d never admit to Gina what she did on the side. She barely admitted it to herself.

“You know the rules. You have to.” Gina leaned over her plate, her dinner forgotten. “How’m I gonna live vicariously if you have such a boring life? You’re a judge, not a nun. Maybe you got confused? The black robes are too matchy?”

Cate smiled. Everybody should have at least one girlfriend who can make her laugh. “Enough about me. Tell me about the bitchy speech therapist,” she said, because she knew Gina needed to talk, and they were off.

Later, while Gina was upstairs getting ready to go, Cate sat at the kitchen chair next to Warren and a watery Diet Coke, its ice melted to slivers. The kitchen lights were dimmed, and Mozart played in the background. Warren remained focused on the window, and Cate followed his gaze, confounded.

Outside, under the security light, the branches of a bare tree moved in the wind, in a stiff, jittery way. Kids with autism saw details and patterns that people without it couldn’t see, so she squinted and tried to see them the way Warren did. Spidery black lines coated with yellow light moved back and forth, then the black lines disappeared into complete darkness. Autistic brains saw everything, but normal brains didn’t see things if they didn’t expect to see them, in a phenomenon called inattentive blindness. There’d even been an experiment where airplane pilots had failed to see a jet on the runway, because they didn’t expect it to be there.

He’s got to come back to us. To his mother. To me.

Cate picked up a medium-sized round mirror rimmed with cheery red felt and tilted it at Warren so that it captured his face. “Warren. You’re Warren,” she said. In the reflection, the child’s mouth tilted down at the one corner, though his gaze stayed at the window. She pointed to his reflection anyway. “Warren.” Then she tilted the mirror to herself, so he could see her reflection. She pointed to her face in the mirror. “Karen.”

What?

“Cate.” Cate blinked and pointed again. She must be tired. Carol. Sandra. Emily. Halley. “Cate.” Then she tilted the mirror to the boy and pointed again. “Warren.”

Warren stirred in the high chair and began to move his head, side to side.

“It’s okay,” Cate said in a calm voice. What was bothering him? Maybe too much pointing. Autistic kids don’t point, and he was just learning how to point in school. She set the mirror down gently. Sudden noises wouldn’t help. “We won’t do this anymore, if you don’t want to.”

Warren shook his head, side to side.

“Warren, it’s okay, we’ll stop now, it’s okay,” Cate soothed, but singsong wasn’t working. She wanted to kick herself. “It’s okay, Warren,” she said, but he started shaking his head faster, then swinging his small arms, jostling the high chair. The chair banged against the kitchen table, and Cate’s glass tipped over with a loud clunk, spilling Diet Coke and sending ice skidding across the table.

“Ahhh!” Warren burst into screaming, shaking his head back and forth so violently that he rocked the high chair, almost toppling it. Cate leapt up and grabbed him under his arms so he didn’t fall, but he was strapped into the high chair and went ballistic. Cate managed to unlatch him and scoop him shrieking into her arms, kicking his feet, writhing back and forth. Cate tried to remember her training. Kids with autism are calmed by tight squeezing. She hugged him tightly, and he kicked against her stomach with his baby sneakers but she didn’t let go.

“Cate!” Gina rushed into the kitchen in a towel, her expression stricken and her wet hair plastered to her shoulders. “Do you need-”

“No, I got it, it’s okay, Warren, it’s okay, it’s Cate and it’s okay,” Cate said over and over, squeezing him. Gina stood at their side, her hand covering her mouth, her tears silent. The child stopped screaming and his kicking finally lessened, then ceased as his tense body loosened in her arms. “It’s all right, Warren, it’s gone now, I love you, Warren,” Cate kept repeating, and Warren went finally limp in her arms.

Gina signaled in time that he had fallen asleep, but Cate didn’t let him go. He felt so good in her arms, permitting her embrace only in slumber, and Gina understood, because she nodded to Cate to go upstairs to put him down. And when they were finished, Cate picked up her purse, slipped back into her sheepskin, and closed the town house door.

Grateful, and heartbroken, to leave.

Afterwards Cate found herself driving the long way home, knowing she was in some vague state of denial. She piloted the white Mercedes through Roxborough, a working-class neighborhood on the way home, a brick labyrinth of row houses with green plastic awnings, heaped now with crusty snow and trimmed with sooty icicles. She felt oddly comfortable here; it was a lot like her hometown, and she kept seeing her own past.

She drove by an old Catholic grade school, its windows covered with construction-paper snowflakes. She had gone to an elementary school like that, St. Ignatius, and remembered making snowflakes, folding the paper into thick eighths, cutting the corners with useless safety scissors, then unfolding the creation in a schoolgirl’s suspense. She’d been either disappointed to discover cut holes that were bigger than they were supposed to be, or happily surprised when a humongous star burst at the center of the snowflake. She didn’t know why she remembered it, now.

She drove past a small church with an attached rectory, then a large stone funeral home that was, ironically, the nicest building on the block. It was always that way in neighborhoods; it had been in hers, too. She cruised ahead, listening to the thrumming of the Mercedes engine and passing old Fords and minivans whitewashed with road salt and grime. She slowed when she came, inevitably, to a corner bar.

PADDY’S, read the neon sign, a glowing green cliché with a sideways shamrock.

Cate eyed the place as the car idled at the stop sign. Its brick facade needed repair and its one window, in the side of the building, was of old-fashioned block glass, almost stop-time. A broken concrete stoop led to a wooden front door, so close to the street that Cate could hear laughter from within. She felt a familiar tingle of arousal and fear.

HONK! HONK!

Cate started and checked the rearview just as a pickup flashed its high beams. She hit the gas and cruised forward, half-looking for a parking space, half-driving home. She checked the digital clock on the car’s tan dashboard, illuminated with a ghostly white: 11:13. Then the temperature: 18 degrees.

Cate lapped the block once, then twice. Thinking, and not thinking. She flashed on Warren, sleeping spent in her arms. Then Marz, for some reason, which reminded her. She still had work to do tonight. Tomorrow would bring a big decision. The motion she had to rule on would prevent the case from ever going to the jury. They’d never get to decide who was telling the truth, and Marz would be dead in the water.

Cate took a left onto Ridge Avenue, heading home.