Success can be measured directly from how hard you work at it.
God created man; science had little to do with it.
If a person is pronounced brain-dead, he or his family should be able to ask a doctor to turn off the life-support machines.
"Well," she said, taking a deep breath. "This ought to be fun."
She pulled out of her pocketbook the Berkshire County voter registry, marked off with a red dot at every ninety-seventh name. "How long do we have to finish this?"
Graham rubbed his hand over his face. "A week," he said. "You can call from my office; the kids will take the last half of the registry pages and call from the sociology department phones."
He smiled at Adams, thanked him for his cooperation, and gently turned Allie away by the elbow. "Who the hell am I kidding?"
Allie smiled up at him. "You get a gold star for effort."
Graham smirked. "In this case, I need to have the highest grades in the whole goddamned class."
They drove in near silence back to the law offices of MacPhee and MacPhee, where Allie spent the remainder of the afternoon with a tub of chicken salad from the coffee shop and a headset she'd taken from Graham's secretary which allowed her to talk on the phone without holding a receiver. She had just made her fortieth call when Graham walked into the room.
"Any luck?" he asked, flipping through the pile of completed surveys.
Allie shrugged. "Incredibly inflexible people. I think everyone I've called moonlights for the KKK," she said. "Except for those few who told me they didn't have time to talk to a telemarketer, and how would I like it if they called me at home?"
Graham laughed. "I hope you gave out your number." He stuck a spoon into the chicken salad and took a bite. "I'm going out. I have my own hunches about jury surveys."
Allie glanced up at him. "Bring me coffee. It's going to be a rough night."
When he reached his car, Graham opened his briefcase and pulled out his copy of the voter registration list. The first name on it was Arlene Abbot, 59 Cheshire Road, Wheelock.
He drove down Main Street, making only one wrong turn on his way to find a vaguely familiar street. The Abbot house was a tiny ranch, with a huge American flag hanging from a pole in the front yard. He noted this next to her name.
Two more Wheelock residents had what Graham considered symbols of inflexibility: chain-link fences, German shepherds, manicured hedges. With a sinking feeling in his gut, he wrote down these details.
The next name he picked was Lawrence Alban, 7572 Groundhog Path, Hancock. It was a bit of a drive to the bordering town, but he found the house with the help of a local map. Hubcaps in the yard, house painted shocking green, homemade bird feeders. He smiled, and scrawled a big star next to this first glimmer of nonconformity.
For Christmas, Mia had given him the world. Cam turned the tiny globe around in his hands, letting the tissue paper from the box fall to the floor. There was no axis; it was speared in place by a strange magnetic attraction, or maybe by magic.
"Brush up on your geography," she said, spinning the globe and offering one of those lies that always seem just within reach when it is Christmas. "We're going to go, someday."
"This is great," he said, delighted. He kissed her. "This is perfect." He thought of Allie, who had bought him a guitar that he didn't know how to play. Mia hadn't purchased something she wanted him to have; she had read his mind and given him what he wanted. "Where did you get it?"
Mia couldn't stop smiling. He liked it; he really liked it. "A catalog. One of those stores that have presents for the man who already has everything."
"I don't have everything," Cam said. I don't have you.
"Oh, I don't know." Mia slid an arm around his waist. "You've got a toehold on the American dream."
Cam thought about that. The house, the cars, the backyard. The wife and the shadows of kids who would someday arrive. It made a pretty, colorful painting, but it was frightening to think of Mia standing somewhere outside the frame.
"I thought you should have something you could keep at the office," Mia said quietly. "Small enough to stuff in a bottom drawer."
Cam brushed her hair away from her face. "I'm not hiding this. I'd just spend the whole day taking it out and playing with it, anyway."
They lay on their bellies on the bed at the Inn, the globe at arm's length. Like blind men, they shirred their fingers over the relief map that covered the ball, trailing up the Himalayas and into the Sahara and through the Mediterranean Sea.
"Well," Cam said finally, pulling an envelope out of his breast pocket. "It's not nearly as exotic. But Merry Christmas."
Mia tore the envelope open. Inside was a brochure, carefully hand-lettered, announcing the presence of Braebury House, a bed-and-breakfasr in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Her hair spilled over her face as she sat up, glancing at the photographs of a wing chair before a glowing fire, a four-poster bed, a comfortable clutter of antiques.
"Two weekends from now," Cam said, his eyes pleading. "I'm going to say there's a training session in New Braintree. Your aunt could get sick again."
Mia considered having Cam for a weekend, a whole weekend, in a place where nobody would judge her as the other woman and no one would know his name. She tried to imagine being part of a twosome like her parents, so close they would be able to think for each other. She considered what it might feel like not to be the odd one out.
He pressed a kiss against the side of her neck, as if he thought she was hesitating; as if he thought she could truly tell him no. "Please," Cam whispered. "Let me try again."
Christmas was not nearly so much of a celebration in Wheelock as Hogmanay, which was known to the rest of Massachusetts as New Year's Eve. As in Scotland, most of the town got roaring drunk. After midnight, neighbors went first-footing, going from house to house to wish each other a good new year, bearing shortbread or bottles of wine or fine whiskey.
Since Cam was always working New Year's Eve, it was much the same as any other night for Allie, except for all the noise outside--it was difficult to ignore the drunken, off-key renditions of "Auld Lang Syne" and the spit and pop of firecrackers the teenagers set off in the wet, cold streets. She had tried to convince Angus and Jamie to spend the night at her house watching the Times Square ball drop, but Angus had simply grunted and said if he'd lived another year, he was damn well going to celebrate it by sleeping in.
Jamie--well, Jamie just hadn't felt like celebrating. "Come by then, after twelve," she had said. "They say the perfect first-footer is a tall, dark-haired man who brings lots of food."
Jamie had laughed at that. "Cam's just as tall. And I can't imagine he'll be happy to shoot the breeze with me after a night of locking up drunks."
So Allie had found herself celebrating alone. At eleven o'clock she took out a bottle of Glenfiddich, which she never drank, and tossed back a shot. She did two more before eleven-thirty. By the time it was midnight, she was feeling charged and festive, her stomach burning pleasantly, her power enough to conquer the world.
She watched Dick Clark for a little while and then went upstairs. On Hogmanay, Cam usually made it home around two in the morning. She could shower, change the sheets, and hope he wasn't exhausted when he got in.
It was just after one when she finished. The bedroom was lovely; lit with candles she'd kept out from Christmas and smelling of the rose infusion she added to her detergent when she washed the sheets. She was still wearing plaid pajamas and oversized slippers in the shape of elephants, but she had plenty of time to change. Sighing, she glanced around, looking for something to do.
She didn't want to straighten Cam's drawers, but she was feeling generous. It had always amazed her how someone who looked so starched and perfectly pressed during the day in a police officer's uniform could unwittingly wrinkle everything else he owned. Allie had once teased him, saying that he'd joined the force because he couldn't keep any other work clothes in decent shape. And Cam had said that when he was a
kid, Ellen had ironed his underwear, so maybe this was just his way of rebelling.
Allie opened his shirt drawer, riffling through the rainbow of fabrics. She couldn't imagine Ellen ironing boxer shorts; ironing anything. It would go against her principles now--she said ironing took all the creativity out of the fabric's personality. She had even taken Allie to task for her bonsai project at the shop. How could she justify chaining with copper wire something that was meant to grow wild and free?
Absently, Allie began to organize Cam's Tshirts according to color. She knew it wouldn't stay that way for more than a day, but she had nothing better to do, and with all that whiskey in her, if she lay down and closed her eyes just for a minute she'd be out like a light. Reds on top, blues on the bottom, whites and decals on a side all their own.
She opened Cam's underwear drawer and began linking the socks. "Dahlink," she drawled, pulling one long gray sock from the tangle, "have I got a match for you!" She fingered the rest of the pile for its mate, rolled them into a ball, and set them on the top of the dresser. She did this until all the socks were lined up. "Like Noah's Ark," she murmured, and then she heard Cam coming up the stairs.
She turned around to face him, her eyes glowing and her cheeks on fire. "Figures," she said. "Redheaded first-footers are the worst kind of luck." She took an unsteady step toward him, pulling on the front of his shirt.
Cam smelled the whiskey; he could have smelled it from downstairs. It was overpowering the fresh floral scent of the turned-down bed. "Well, Jesus," he said, grinning so hard a dimple appeared in his cheek. "You, Allie MacDonald, are drunk."
"I am nothing of the kind," Allie said indignantly. "You're just sober."
"As a judge," Cam laughed. "Exactly what I wanted to come home to."
He sat down on the bed and pulled off his boots, looking at the row of socks on the top of his dresser. "I hope you weren't doing this for me. It's hopeless."
Allie shrugged. "I was bored." She took a step toward him, swaying suggestively and nearly falling in the process. "I was waiting for you."
Cam smiled. "You'll have to wait a little longer. I need to take a shower."
"That's okay," Allie said. "I'll attack some more drawers." She turned back to the dresser and pulled out Cam's boxer shorts. There were some white ones, but most were printed with the images of tropical fish or moose or traffic signs--Allie always stuffed a new pair into his Christmas stocking. She lifted the boxers on top--lipstick kisses--and something tumbled to the floor.
It was a T-shirt, rolled tight into a ball around a pair of women's bikini underwear, nothing at all like the ones Allie wore. "Look at this," she said, holding them up to the light.
Cam had just pulled his shirt over his head. He turned to see Allie holding the clothes Mia had left behind the weekend before Christmas; the clothes that he, like an idiot, had forgotten to bring back to her.
The moment of reckoning hit him like a sucker punch, driving him to sit down on the bed with a sharp intake of breath. Not yet, not yet, not yet, he thought. I don't want to let her go. He did not let himself wonder which woman he meant.
Allie brought the T-shirt closer and noticed the little label in the neck. "Mia's," she said matter-of-factly. "I should have known." She folded the shirt and placed it on the bed beside Cam. "God, have we had them all this time? She must have left them months ago when she first stayed overnight."
Cam felt his mouth moving woodenly around words that seemed to have no edges. "Maybe you washed them. Maybe you stuck them in there by mistake."
Allie nodded. "I probably wasn't thinking. I do the laundry on automatic pilot. If it's soft, it must be a pair of boxers."
Cam stuffed the shirt and panties beneath the bed, where he wouldn't have to think about it. He had never loved Allie more than he did in that incredible, guileless moment; the feeling flooded him in tandem with a hot swell of relief, so that he became full and heavy, immobile.
He looked at his wife, hiccuping behind her hand, her hair straggling out of its braid and down the back of her plaid pajamas. Her teeth bit into her bottom lip as she folded his underwear; her conversation tumbled along in a giddy rush.
Innocence looked lovely on her.
FIFTEEN
Allie and Cam usually celebrated Valentine's Day on January 14, because the shop claimed too much of her attention the following month for her to enjoy the holiday herself. It had been a tradition for six years now. Allie would wake up in the morning and pull a card for Cam and a gift out of her nightstand, and Cam would stare at her, his mouth opening and closing like a trout's, as he realized he'd forgotten yet again.
It wasn't like she was buying him something extraordinary-- usually she went to an outdoorsman shop and picked up a couple of off-season flies--but she could not keep herself from thinking, the night before, that this year was going to be the year Cam remembered all by himself. And she supposed she could have stacked the odds, too, by mentioning Valentine's Day in passing a week or so before, but that would have defeated the purpose.
To Cam's credit, he always bounced back. He'd return after work with a box of chocolates and a card, I love you scribbled in pencil and slightly shaky, as if he had written it while his car was still moving.
This year, they were celebrating two days earlier, January 12, because Cam would be away on business that weekend. The sun was high and still when Allie woke up, but she screwed her eyes shut and willed herself to go back to sleep. She pretended that she could smell something dizzy and sweet--the perfume of, say, a half-dozen calla lilies that Cam had stowed beneath his side of the bed in the middle of the night. She slid her eyes to her right, but Cam was snoring lightly. One arm was tossed up over his head, one foot peaked out from the quilt.
I am going to count to ten, she told herself. And then he's going to wake up and surprise me.
One. Two, three . . .
She didn't know why this year seemed to matte more than the other years. Maybe it was because they had been fighting so much during the holidays. Maybe it was because she had seen so little of him while conducting Graham's jury survey. Maybe it was because she was getting tired of doing all the work.
Seven, eight. . .
With a sigh she rolled toward Cam. The stained-glass panel he'd given her months before cast half of his face into a blue shadow, making him look otherworldly. The glass heart of one daffodil, a bright red shard, reflected on his cheek like a scar.
She dug in her nightstand for the card and the tiny box. Then she poked him in the ribs. "Happy Valentine's Day," she said.
Cam's eyes shot open. "No," he groaned. He rolled his face into his pillow. "Shit."
Allie ran her hand over the muscular line of his shoulder, down the ridges of his spine. "Let me guess."
Cam propped himself up on his elbows and offered her a smile that would have charmed a snake. "I've been preoccupied with this stupid training," he said. "You know, getting things set at the station so that I can leave today. Besides, I've got till midnight," he reminded her.
"That's what you always say."
"That's because it's always true." He rolled onto his back. "If you were smart, you'd wait until dinnertime to give me a card."
He was already tearing it open. "If I did that," Allie said dispassionately, "I'd never get anything in return."
Cam sat up and read the card, grinned, and kissed her cheek. "Look at it this way--since I'm leaving at noon, you're sure to get something by then." He stripped away the wrapping paper on the tiny gift and lifted two woolly boogers out of the box. Laughing, he placed them on the sheet between him and Allie. "These are great. I love getting fly-fishing stuff when there's a foot of snow on the ground."
Allie swung her legs out of bed. "Makes spring come that much faster," she said, and padded to the bathroom.
When she'd closed the door behind her, Cam exhaled slowly and held his hands up to his face. They were trembling. He was planning to meet Mia in Shelburne Falls at one, and leave her car at a Stop
& Shop so they could drive the bulk of the way to New Hampshire together.
Allie came out of the bathroom while he was stuffing clothes into a duffel bag. She watched him fold jeans, a turtleneck and a sweatshirt, a pair of long underwear. Then he put his heavy snow boots right on top. "Aren't you forgetting a uniform?" she asked.
He jumped, zipped the bag, and turned around. "Christ," he said. "You scared the hell out of me." He gestured at the bag. "It's a casual seminar. No uniforms."
Allie arched an eyebrow. "Are they holding it indoors?"
"In the middle of January? What do you think?"
She moved to her dresser and pulled out a pair of stockings. "Then what's the long underwear for?"
"Oh, that. They're doing some kind of survival thing. A biathlon. Skiing, shooting. You know."
He wondered when he had become so good at distorting the truth.
He watched Allie struggle into a pair of panty hose. It was not a graceful thing, in spite of what you imagined when you were a teenage boy. He turned abruptly, picked up his bag, and left the bedroom.
Graham sat on the floor in a pair of rumpled khaki pants, his shirt wrinkled and buttoned incorrectly so that one flap hung longer than the other. He dipped a doughnut into the sludge he'd made that was passing for coffee and stared at the dry-erase board in front of him.
He'd appropriated it from the MacPhee and MacPhee conference room. It was set up like a grid. On the left-hand side, in green ink, were the days: September 15, 16, 17, 18, 19. At the top, under the fifteenth, Graham had written: APPOINTMENT, 4:45 P.M., DR. DASCOMB WHARTON. At the bottom, underneath the nineteenth, he'd written: MAGGIE, ESTIMATED TIME OF DEATH, 7 A.M.--10 A.M., HUGO HUNTLEY.
In the middle, the chart looked like a crossword puzzle. He'd tried to re-create the days as Jamie had described them during their walk a few weeks earlier, and with Allie diligently working on the jury survey, he'd taken time to prepare his witnesses and to corroborate Jamie's story. In many cases, to his astonishment, there had been someone to witness Jamie and Maggie as they celebrated their last weekend alone. Bud Spitlick remembered seeing them up on the roof of the house eating something or other; he said he'd yelled at them to be careful up there. And an usher at the Loew's multiplex cinema remembered Jamie and Maggie from that Saturday night; he blushed when he told Graham he'd had to shine his flashlight on them as they were making out and tell them to keep it down a little.