Second Glance: A Novel

  And so it was that when Ross came outside onto Shelby's porch and saw what he did, he thought twice. It could have been squirrels; it could have been a neighbor kid's prank. Or it could have been something else entirely that had meticulously arranged seventeen tiny stones in the shape of a heart.

  This was not his mother. Ethan watched the imposter getting ready for her date from his nest on the bed, humming as she snapped on her holiday earrings, using that goop girls wiped on their eyelashes if they were in the habit of wearing makeup, putting perfume on in places that made no sense--the backs of her knees, the pucker of her belly button.

  "Are you two going to hook up?" Ethan asked.

  "Hook up?"

  "Yeah, you know. Do it."

  His mother, in the process of slipping into a high-heeled shoe, stumbled. "What kind of a question is that?"

  He thought for a minute. "A smart one."

  "Well," she said. "I haven't decided yet."

  Ethan began to pick at the knotting on the quilt. "If I were you, I'd do it. But only if he lets you shoot off his gun once or twice."

  His mother got that look, the one where she did a really bad job of trying not to smile. "I'll tell him you suggested that."

  Ethan considered what he knew of making out--it seemed to him about as gross as some girl spitting into a glass, and then giving it to him to drink. "Then again, it might not be worth it."

  She tugged at his cap, so that it twisted around backward. "Get back to me on that when you're older."

  "I'm never going to kiss any girls." Ethan watched her stand up, check herself out in the mirror. He had to admit, she looked . . . pretty. And something about that made him feel like the room was spinning.

  "Trust me . . . it's irrefragable. One day you're going to want to do that more than anything else in the world."

  "And who," Ethan said, "is going to want to do that with me?"

  His mother paused, then came to sit beside him on the bed. She touched his face as if it were the most beautiful thing she had ever seen, instead of the chalk-white mask of a monster. "Many, many smart women," she answered, looking into his eyes. "We may have to beat them off with a stick."

  "As if," Ethan answered, ducking away, when what he really meant was: I hope I'm here to see it.

  She hugged him, and for some reason, he let her, although he'd given up that kind of lovey-dovey stuff a year ago. Her eyes were bright with a world that did not include Ethan. And because it was going to be that way sooner or later, he found the strength to let her go.

  In the dark of his room at Shelby's, Ross was kissed awake. He felt the soft pressure of a mouth against his, the sigh that breathed into his own lungs, and he raised his arms from the cocoon of covers to pull this moment tight against him before it could bleed into the next. He reached out, and found himself grabbing at nothing.

  He knocked over the alarm clock and flicked on the lamp, suddenly alert. Sitting up, he confirmed what he already knew: he was alone in his bedroom, the door locked just the way he'd left it the night before. And his bed was now spotted with hundreds of rose petals.

  "Where are you?" He jumped to his feet in only his boxers, yanking the covers off with one good tug. He lifted the mattress and threw it onto the floor. He shoved at the footboard, sliding the bed away from the wall. Frustrated and breathing hard, he sank to the carpet and buried his face in his hands. Just once, Ross thought, I would like to be the kind of guy who gets lucky. Just once I'd like someone to live for.

  The knocking on the door grew louder. "Ross? You in there? I thought I heard something fall down."

  He dragged himself to his feet and unlocked the door, opened it just a crack. In the hall his sister stood dressed to the nines, trying to see over his shoulder. "I tripped," he lied.

  "Oh. You're okay?"

  "Great. Fantastic." Ross nodded at her dress. "You look nice."

  She blushed. "Thanks. The date. You said you'd watch Ethan."

  "Yeah, I remember," Ross said, although he hadn't. "Give me a minute."

  He closed the door and reached for the jeans that he'd left on the floor before going to sleep. How could he not have fallen for Lia, a woman who--like Ross himself--would have given anything to change the circumstances of her existence . . . but could not figure out how?

  He could still taste her.

  He was about to leave when he turned back, walked to the puddle of linens on the floor, and shook them out onto the bed again. The sheets floated down, still fragrant with the scent of roses. But the petals themselves had vanished, disappearing without a visible trace.

  Sometimes, being a public servant paid off. Such as tonight, when Eli had wanted to do something special for Shelby-- like providing her with a memorable date at approximately two in the morning, when most restaurants were closed. He unlocked the door to the Italian bistro and held it open so that she could step inside. She sniffed at the traces of oregano and garlic wafting from the kitchen. "You moonlight as a chef?"

  "No . . . I just know the right people." He led Shelby to the table he'd set up earlier this evening. A bottle of red wine sat beside a single candle. A rose was draped over her plate.

  Eddie Montero had come to Eli a month ago, asking for his help in nailing an employee who was stealing from the cash register. A few surveillance cameras had done the trick-- although Eli imagined that Eddie hadn't had the heart to reprimand his mother, a part-time substitute waitress who also had kleptomaniac tendencies. Still, he'd been happy enough to loan Eli his establishment off-hours, and even went so far as to prepare a meal that was waiting in the warming oven for them. A heart-healthy meal, unfortunately, without any goddamned red meat.

  "You know," Shelby said, as he pulled out her chair, "I could have come out at a normal hour."

  "But then I wouldn't have been the only guy staring at you." In heels and a tight black dress, Shelby Wakeman looked nothing like the brown mouse she pretended to be at the library, or the harried mother she actually was. She'd tumbled her hair into a knot at the top of her head, which only made her eyes more luminous and her mouth seem softer. If Eli had felt some primal pull between them before, he was absolutely captivated by her now.

  He served the salad and antipasto, and poured the wine. "Eddie picked the vintage," Eli admitted. "I can't tell a Riesling from a Riunite."

  "I'm pretty sure the Riunite is the one with the twist-off cap."

  "Ah, right. I knew there was a clue." Eli tipped his glass against Shelby's, listening to the crystal sing. "To first dates," he toasted.

  Shelby shook her head and put down her glass. "I can't drink to that."

  A sinking feeling started in Eli's stomach. "You can't?"

  "No. I've been thinking about it, and I don't really want to have a first date. By definition, they're awful, aren't they?"

  It took Eli a few moments to find an appropriate response. "What do you think we ought to do, then?"

  Shelby smiled. "I want to have a second date."

  "By definition," he repeated, "doesn't that imply that we've had a first one?"

  "Well, it certainly suggests that we know all the bare facts about each other already."

  "Which we don't . . ."

  "We know enough to have gotten us here."

  A smile stretched across Eli's face as understanding dawned. "What did he do . . . throw up in your lap? Talk about how your eyes reminded him of his ex?"

  "Who?"

  "Whoever it was that ruined first dates for you."

  Shelby pleated her napkin. "Actually, this is my first date. I'm going strictly on hearsay."

  "I find that hard to believe."

  "Oh, I could tell you stories that would--"

  "No," Eli interrupted. "I mean, I find it hard to believe that this is your first date."

  "Well, I meant since having Ethan."

  Eli feigned nonchalance. "What happened to Ethan's dad?"

  "Last I heard, he was living in Seattle. We don't really connect much." Shelby mo
ved her food around her plate. "He divorced me after Ethan was born. He couldn't handle having a kid with XP."

  "XP," he repeated.

  "That's the condition Ethan's got--the one that means he can't be out in the sunlight. It's a genetic abnormality--and very rare."

  Eli had talked with Ethan about it . . . but briefly. The only thing he remembered the kid saying was that he wasn't going to live long. "Is he . . . is he going to be okay?"

  "No," Shelby said softly. "He's not."

  Her chin came up, but she did not say anything else. Eli set down his fork. "There's nothing doctors can do?"

  "The only thing they can do is tell you ahead of time. So you know what to expect, although I don't think you're ever ready for something like this. But most genetic counselors don't even think to look for XP. I wouldn't have even gone to one, if Thomas hadn't had cystic fibrosis in his family."

  "Didn't the doctor flag it?"

  "She. And no, she didn't. It turned out that my appointment was canceled. When I got down there, I was pretty annoyed, like most of the other patients who had been left high and dry. One of them had heard the receptionist talking on the phone--apparently the reason for the snafu was that the doctor had taken the day off to get an abortion herself." Shelby's hand crept to her abdomen unconsciously. "I thought about that, a lot. It was certainly her choice to do what she needed to do, and I have no idea what her reasons were. But I also realized that I wouldn't give up on that baby inside me--not even if it had cystic fibrosis, or XP, or anything else. Nothing that geneticist was going to tell me would change my mind . . . so it didn't make any sense to reschedule my appointment."

  Eli and his wife had not had children before she ran off with another man. He wondered, now, what he would have done if she'd not only taken herself away, but also his baby. He imagined that no matter how it came about, losing a child was something that you kept coming back to, like the hole in your gum when you lost a tooth or a scar you'd worry with your fingertips--a disfigurement that you felt over and over. "Ethan seems like a great kid," Eli said.

  "A handful of years with him still beats a lifetime with anyone else." She smiled. "He had some advice for me about this date. So did Ross."

  "Oh, yeah?"

  "Ross told me never to trust a man who makes people confess for a living."

  "And Ethan?"

  "I may just hang onto his pearl of wisdom for a while longer," Shelby laughed.

  Eli leaned back in his seat. "Your brother, he's interesting."

  "That's a nice way of saying it," Shelby replied, buttering her bread. "More often, I hear terms like drifter and fuck-up."

  "You don't think of him like that."

  "No. I think he's lost. And that's a circumstance that only lasts as long as it takes to be found by someone else." A curl fell out of her topknot; she tucked it behind her ear.

  "Happiness comes easier to some people than others. Ross wants to be happy; he wants it more than anyone I've ever met. But asking him to actually find his way there . . . well, that's like asking him to spread his arms and fly. He just can't, is all."

  "What about you?" he asked. "You take care of Ethan and you stand up for Ross. But who's watching out for you?"

  Eli reached for Shelby's hand, which was wrapped too tightly around the stem of her wineglass. He watched her mouth relax, and then, in the moment it took for her to remember herself, she pulled away. "Here I am confabulating about myself--"

  "Why do you do that?" he asked.

  "Do what?"

  "Use words no one else understands."

  "It means--"

  "I don't care," Eli said. "I just want to know why you never say what you really mean."

  He thought she would sidestep the question, but she met his gaze. "With words, you know what you're getting. When I know the right thing to say, there aren't any surprises."

  He leaned in a little. "Go ahead. Ask me the wrong thing."

  She hesitated, then lowered her voice, as if there were other people around. "Why me, Eli?"

  He stood up and drew her close, as if this might be the way to answer her question.

  "Why?" Shelby repeated.

  "Because dancing's what you do on the second date," Eli said, deliberately misunderstanding her. He tucked her tighter, feeling her head beneath his chin, her jaw against his collarbone.

  "There isn't any music."

  "You think?" Eli said softly, and he rocked Shelby in his arms until she too heard the silver sound of nothing at all.

  Ross stood at the highest ledge of the granite quarry, watching his nephew scramble over huge chips and pillars left by yesterday's blasting that hadn't yet been mined. It surprised him, after being so reckless with his own life, to feel so incredibly nervous watching someone he loved taking a risk. But in return for helping Ross at the Pike property, Ethan asked to spend one night living on the edge--literally. And because he deserved it, Ross had been determined to make it happen.

  He had gotten the permission of the security guard--Az Thompson. With Shelby gone on her date, Ross knew he had a good few hours to take Ethan on this field trip. Az stood beside Ross, watching Ethan shimmy up a long sloping piece of rose-colored granite. "You won't get in trouble for this, will you?" Ross asked.

  "Only if the kid hurts himself."

  "He better not."

  "Will you get in trouble for this?" Az asked.

  "Probably," Ross admitted. "I'm supposed to be taking care of him." He kicked at a pebble, which fell over the lip of the quarry to strike hundreds of feet below. "Speaking of which, I never thanked you for the other night."

  "No need."

  Ross shook his head. "I . . . well, a lot happened just before you got to me. I found my ghost."

  "I heard."

  "You don't seem surprised."

  "I wasn't the one who needed convincing," Az said.

  "Eli Rochert said you're going to do some kind of ceremony?"

  "Friday, at dawn. You coming?"

  Ross could not speak for a moment. Eli had explained that the ritual would be a private one, limited to the officials needed to dig up the remains and the Abenaki spiritual leaders. He was not an official, and he was not Abenaki; therefore, he had no illusions about being invited. He had even told himself that seeing the remains of this woman who'd come alive only for him would be like losing her all over again.

  Yet there was a part of him that wanted so badly to be present. Because if Lia's body was being put to rest, chances were that her spirit would come to bear witness. And if she saw Ross, maybe this time she would not leave.

  "I'll be there," Ross said quietly.

  Az crossed his arms over his chest. "What they should be doing, instead of digging up this grave, is burying Spencer Pike alive."

  Ross looked hard at Az. Az, who had protested the development of the Pike property before there was any concrete proof. Az, who was old enough to have heard about Spencer Pike's crusade for sterilization. Eli had told him that the old man had moved to Comtosook in the seventies, and that he'd come from the Midwest. But Shelby had said that in the 1930s some of the Abenaki had migrated to escape what was happening in Vermont--joining up with the Ojibway in Michigan and Minnesota and Wisconsin. They had taken their stories. And Az would have listened.

  "How much," Ross asked, "did you know?"

  Az shrugged. "Enough."

  "You didn't tell anyone. You could have walked right up to Eli and told him about Spencer Pike and eugenics."

  "Why bring up something that hurts so much, if it's not going to change anything?"

  "But it does. It keeps it from happening again."

  Az raised a brow. "Do you really believe that?"

  Ross started to nod, but then realized he would be lying. The truth was, history repeated itself on a daily basis; mistakes were made over and over. People were haunted by what they had done, and by what they hadn't had time to do. "Gray Wolf," he said suddenly. "You know what happened to him, don't you?"


  The old man stared up at the yellow eye of the moon. "Where I used to live, every few years, there would be rumors about people seeing him. In line at the bank, or sitting in the back of a bus, or dealing in a casino."

  "Like Elvis." Ross smiled. He should have known better. Reality sometimes morphed into legend, but the equation never went the other way. "Well, I suppose it doesn't matter, really. The guy's probably dead by now."

  "I'm 102," Az said softly, "but who's counting."

  TEN

  "I killed her." Az pressed the small wad of gauze to the spot on his arm where blood had just been drawn and looked calmly at the detective sitting across from him in the examination room.

  Eli didn't even blink. "The evidence doesn't suggest that."

  "Far as I know, there's still a warrant out for me."

  Ross put down the tongue depressor that he'd dressed with a cotton ball hairdo, a makeshift puppet. After confessing his identity, Az had agreed to meet with Eli. Ross half expected him to skip town again--but he'd been waiting on the steps of the police station when Ross had arrived. He'd allowed Eli to fingerprint him, and even Ross could see those telltale arches, the same ones that had been on Gray Wolf's fingerprint card from the State Prison. And when Eli had gone one step further and asked Az for a blood sample for DNA typing, the old man was the one who suggested they do it right away.

  But why confess after seventy years?

  "I killed her," Az repeated. "I found a girl who grew up like royalty, and explained she wasn't a princess after all. It doesn't matter if I wound that rope around her neck, if I was even there that night. She wouldn't have died if I hadn't told her she was my daughter."

  "You must have realized that finding out the truth wouldn't be easy for her," Eli said.

  "I wasn't thinking of the choices she'd have to make. I just wanted to get to know her, because she was what I'd be leaving behind in this world. Only it didn't work out that way."

  "Did you tell Pike, too?"

  "No."

  "Do you think Lia told him?"

  "I think she was afraid to," Az said. "He'd locked her up the week before. She had been suicidal--and he said he wanted to keep an eye on her, keep her from hurting herself. In Spencer Pike's mind, announcing you were a Gypsy was just as self-destructive." "Why didn't you take her out of there?" Ross accused. "You could have saved her." And yet, he knew that even if Az Thompson had spirited Lia off to Canada to have her child, she still would not be his. She would be an old woman. The only reason he had ever met her at all was because she had died when she did.