Pulse

29

“B ullshit!” Pearl said.

“You keep saying that,” the woman told her.

Pearl no longer had the young woman with the springy red hair up against the wall and was pacing, fast, three steps each way, breathing hard and glaring at the woman. She wished her heart would stop hammering.

The woman bent down and retrieved her Mets cap that Pearl had knocked off her head and then kicked. She dusted it off on her thigh, then put it on perfectly straight and tucked strands of unruly hair beneath it.

“Cody’s girl,” the woman said calmly, staring straight at Pearl from beneath the cap’s curved brim.

The past came rushing at Pearl and hit her like a wall. She’d been twenty, pregnant, and in love with Cody Clarke, who studied music at NYU and supported himself playing saxophone in night spots around the city.

Cody Clarke. The first one. Jesus!

Pearl’s mother had warned her not to try living on her own in New York. Warned her about this very thing. How could Pearl have gone home to New Jersey and told her what happened? That she’d made the biggest, most blundering mistake possible?

Pearl could see Cody now in the clarity of time, sitting in his underwear on the mattress laid out on the floor, the covers bunched around him, his wild red hair a jumble of curls. The roach-infested apartment’s ancient radiator was hissing and spitting. Why am I remembering that?

“We can’t get married, babe,” he’d told her.

“That wasn’t in my mind,” she’d lied. She went to him, sat down next to him on the mattress, and they hugged each other.

“You’re sure?” he asked.

“Don’t ask me that. Of course I’m sure.”

“You been-”

“To a doctor? Yeah. He confirmed it.”

“I know another doctor,” Cody said.

“Don’t even think about that.”

“Okay, I won’t.” Breezy Cody. “I gotta leave next week for California. The tour with the guys.” The guys were Happy, Joey, and Tex. Happy played the drums, Tex the bass guitar. Joey played about everything. They were all mediocre musicians except for Cody, who could play saxophone like a wild man. Cody was the glue and the draw. He had to go to California.

“So go,” Pearl said. “Don’t let me interfere with your plans. You’re not gonna interfere with mine.”

He looked at her almost as if he loved her. “What are your plans, babe?”

“Adoption.”

He squeezed her. “That could be hard on you. I know a girl who

…”

“What?”

“Never mind. Are you gonna tell your mom about this?”

“I won’t have to. She’ll know. But we’ll never talk about it. She doesn’t want to disown me.”

“God, Pearl!”

“I’m gonna have the baby, Cody. Don’t try talking me out of it.”

“I wouldn’t do that. It’s your choice.”

“You don’t have to worry.”

“About what?”

“Child support, whatever. I’m gonna put it up for adoption. Not even gonna look at it.”

“You might change your mind about that,” Cody had said.

But she didn’t. The next week she saw him and the guys off to California in the beat-to-hell Volkswagen bus they’d found somewhere. Somebody had painted yellow stars all over the thing. She could see it now. And hear it. And feel the tug of the parting. Cody…

“Pearl?” The woman’s voice. Her daughter’s. The bittersweet past was gone.

“Yeah?”

“You do believe me, don’t you?”

I believe you. I dreamed about you. I searched for you during the first few years of your life. When I look at you, every part of me believes you.

“Yeah. I think so. How’d you find me?”

“I’ve been looking for you off and on. Finally came across you on the Internet. ’Least I thought it was you. It seemed like you. Then I saw you on campus with that other cop.”

“Quinn.”

“Whatever. I figured you were investigating the Macy Collins murder. So I asked around. Learned it was you. I decided to find and follow you.”

“Why?”

“Curiosity, I guess.”

“You been curious about your father?”

“Not for a while. He died fifteen years ago in a nightclub fire in Holland, along with a dozen other people. He was there playing music. I never met him.”

Pearl wasn’t prepared for the way her heart dropped. She began to sweat and felt dizzy.

“You okay?” the woman asked.

Pearl straightened up. I’m not okay. You dropped a nuclear bomb on me. I feel sick. “Yeah. Listen, what’s your name?”

“Juditha Jason. People call me Jody.”

“Juditha…?”

“I think somebody wrote my name down with a flourish.”

“And you’re a student at Waycliffe?”

“Studying law.” She grinned. “You find ’em, I put ’em away.”

“Lame,” Pearl said, dabbing perspiration off her forehead with the back of her hand.

“Yeah.”

“Er, Jody? Your time growing up? I mean…”

Jody smiled. Pearl saw Cody and almost keeled over. “It was good. I loved the Jasons. They loved me.” The smile widened. “You did right by me. The right thing.”

“Are they…?”

“Both gone now. Mom of breast cancer two years ago. Dad had a stroke six months later.”

Mom… Dad… Would Pearl ever get her mind around this? “I’m sorry, Jody.”

Jody gave a sad smile. “Thanks. And thanks for giving me my time with them.”

Pearl took a deep breath and felt better, as if she’d been carrying around a weight most of her life and it had been lifted, though in truth she’d outlived the guilt she’d felt for putting Jody up for adoption. Yet here, along with surprise and joy was-not guilt, but something like guilt. She hadn’t even seen her daughter before the Jason family had obtained her. Of course Pearl hadn’t known their names. Or her baby’s. Nobody knew anybody then. The agency wanted to keep it that way. It had made sense to Pearl then. Still did.

For a few seconds she felt a deep anger directed at Jody. Then it passed. What had the girl done other than grow up well and search for her mother and father? She’d found her father. At least his memory.

And now… what? Could all this… disruption… be true?

Pearl looked hard at Jody, who grinned and shrugged her shoulders to great effect but without much movement. The way Pearl shrugged her shoulders.

“We need to talk,” Jody said.

“One of us was bound to say that.”

“It figured I’d be the one.”

“I know a quiet place near here,” Pearl said.

She touched Jody’s elbow lightly to lead her out of the passageway, and found that she couldn’t release the elbow. She couldn’t. Her legs were numb and weak. Jody could feel her trembling and moved closer to support her. The two women hugged, and both began to sob.

God, Pearl hated this!