Blue Diary

  “So do I,” Jay says cheerfully before he hangs up.

  Charlotte pulls on a pair of jeans and a tee-shirt and takes her cigarettes from the night table. She goes downstairs, through the darkened hall, then into the kitchen, which Ethan remodeled two years earlier. He’d done a great job, installing granite countertops. along with cherrywood cabinets that open without a sound, and a floor fashioned from terra cotta tiles. The truth of it is, there were days when Charlotte had rushed to get dressed in order to hurry downstairs in the pale morning light and drink a cup of coffee with Ethan before she went off to work. Listening to the birds who were waking in the trees, standing so close to him, she was afraid he would hear her heart pounding. Throughout the day her thoughts would return to him, and she couldn’t put aside the way she felt when she brought him to mind, a mixture of deep pleasure and guilt.

  As for Ethan, he never seemed to notice her attraction to him. He treated her as though she were his wife’s best friend, which, of course, was exactly what she was. In a way, she'd been relieved when he’d finished with the job, and she’d never bothered to call him back when it turned out the sink had been installed incorrectly, phoning Mark Derry, the plumber, directly to ask if he’d stop by and make the repairs. She hadn’t wanted to see Ethan in her kitchen again or feel her pulse quicken when he was close by and from then on she avoided him. Maybe she’d been afraid of what irretrievable thing she might say or do, distrusting her own uncultivated desires as if they were a flock of wild birds let loose, the sort you could never catch once they’d been freed, not if you chased them to the farthest corners of the Commonwealth.

  Tonight as she locks her house before heading over to Jories, Charlotte thinks about the brittle wedge of resentment she’d felt earlier when Jorie hadn’t shown up at the bakery. She had planned to tell Jorie about the lump that she’d found, for she’d needed an optimist’s embrace, and Jorie always managed to see the best in every situation. Now Charlotte understands why Jorie never arrived. She’d been down at the county offices, on King George’s Road, caught up in the turmoil of something gone so haywire, no one in the town of Monroe ever would have imagined the way her day would begin and how it would end.

  The newscaster had said Ethan was being detained in regard to a murder that had taken place fifteen years earlier, not that Ethan Ford was his true name. It was nothing more than an identity he’d purchased for two hundred dollars. The real Ethan Ford, the one whose social security number this man had been using ever since his arrival in New England, had died in his crib thirty-nine years ago on a summer night in Maryland; he had not lived past his first birthday. Now, as the evening cools down, Charlotte walks out of her house and across the lawn beneath a ceiling of stars and confusion. If she believes what has been reported tonight, then perhaps anything is possible. She might turn onto Front Street and fall headlong into the ether. She might take a single step and find there are constellations swirling beneath her feet as well as up above, in the black and endless sky.

  Usually, most houses were dark at this hour, but tonight people in Monroe were staying up late; even those who believed in early to bed and early to rise were drinking coffee and trying their best to puzzle things out. They’re caught up in something they’ve always believed couldn’t happen anywhere close by, not in Monroe, where there are only eight men on the police force and no one frets when children play outside after dusk. Those who knew Ethan Ford best of all—his friend Mark Derry, for instance, or the lawyer Barney Stark, who’s been his fellow coach at Little League for the past six years, or the valiant members of the volunteer fire department. who have time after time entrusted their lives to him—feel as though they’d been hit hard, right in the stomach, so that it is now impossible for these men to draw a breath without pain.

  Barney Stark assumes he’ll step in as Ethan’s attorney, just as he had two years ago, when the Jeffrieses over on Sherwood Street sued Ethan after their house burned down. True enough, Ethan had refinished their basement and, therefore, the Jeffrieses had been quick to blame the blaze on the insulation he’d installed. That Ethan had helped to extinguish the Jeffrieses’ fire, putting his own life at risk, meant nothing to Roger Jeffries and his wife. Dawn. They were days away from a court date when the insurance company found that the fire had started in the Jeffrieses’ teenaged son’s bedroom. The case was dropped when the boy himself, a gawky, shy sixteen-year-old, finally admitted he had fallen asleep while smoking in bed.

  Like everyone else close to the Fords, Barney hasn’t had any luck reaching Jorie. The wires have been jammed since the news-cast, with Jorie’s sister, Anne, setting her phone on automatic redial. But after a while, even single-minded Anne realizes that Jorie has decided not to answer, and figures it’s best to wait until morning. Barney, however, does not yield so easily He’s a worrier, a good and thorough man, the sort of individual who gets in his car and drives over to the Fords’, just to make certain he isn’t needed. Lights have been left on inside the house, but the curtains are drawn, and no one answers when Barney knocks at the door. He smells something he doesn’t recognize. Noneysuckle, perhaps. A sweet summer night. From what he can gather from the news-cast, there is some evidence that connects Ethan to a murder in Maryland—he was in the town where it happened and abandoned his truck there, a vehicle that recently had been pulled out of the sludge when a local swimming hole was drained—but this is circumstantial evidence, the sort of half-truth that gets innocent men sent away for crimes they would hardly be able to imagine, let alone commit.

  “Hello,” Barney hollers to the shuttered house. “Anyone home?”

  One yard away, the younger of the Williams sisters sits on the porch, not fifteen feet from the spot where her father killed himself last July. Kat Williams watches Barney with narrowed eyes, arms encircling her knobby knees.

  “Do you know if anybody’s home?” Barney waves to make sure he’s made contact, because you never can tell with Kat Williams. She’s the kind of child who makes Barney nervous, a wild card you can never trust to act like a child, alternately older and younger than her age. Thankfully, Barney’s own daughters are calm, predictable girls, although he’s none too thrilled that his eldest girl, Kelly, is friendly with Kat’s sister, who has a reputation for her rude behavior as well as her beauty. Sorry to say, but when it comes to Rosarie Williams, Barney can see nothing but trouble ahead. “No one’s answering when I knock.” Barney calls to the girl who’s watching him.

  “That’s because they don’t want to see you,” Kat calls back across Mrs. Gage’s lawn. Kat has been catching fireflies, and there is a jam jar at her feet that glitters with light. Tonight there were so many fireflies flitting across the lawns and among the leaves of the hedges, Kat hadn’t even needed to chase them, the way she and Collie usually did. She’d just opened her hands and they’d flown right in. “You’d better go away.”

  “What makes you think they don’t want to see me?” Barney has a wave of anxiety; he feels the way he used to, back in school, when he was always the last to know when someone was making fun of him.

  “If they’d wanted to see you, they would have opened the door,” Kat Williams says reasonably. “Wouldn’t they? They wouldn’t keep ignoring you.”

  Kat has Band-Aids on both her legs that she’s fiddling with; she isn’t pretty or athletic, and she has a peevish expression on her face. but she doesn’t miss much, and in this case, she definitely has a point. In Barney’s estimation, Kat Williams probably has the makings of an excellent attorney. She’s a smart cookie, that much is evident. Barney prides himself on his ability to read people. If anyone can judge who’s being forthright, it’s Barney, whose own daughters call him the Great Detecto behind his back. The Stark girls know they can’t get away with the slightest fib in their house, not even those small, white lies, such as who left the dirty dishes in the sink or who was responsible for a rash of long-distance phone calls.

  In court, Barney can easily distinguish between who’s t
elling the truth and who’s not. What people say about a liar not being able to look you in the eye isn’t truc. A liar will stare at you and tell you he’s a polar bear or the king of France; he’ll swear on his dear mother’s life that he’s an innocent man. No, Barney can gauge when the truth is omitted, because if you watch closely you’ll see that a liar’s eyes tend to move back and forth, as if, while he speaks to you, he’s already looking for the pathway to his escape. All liars are ready to break and run. They don’t sit on their porches, glaring at you, globes of fireflies at their feet.

  “Maybe you’re right,” Barney calls to Kat Williams.

  “No maybes about it.” Kat’s mouth is set in a thin line and her shoulders are hunched over. Her certainty touches Barney. He thinks of his daughters, sweet girls who’ve never had to suffer a day in their lives. Kat Williams knows too much about sorrow. It wasn’t that long ago when Barney used to see Aaron Williams out here in the evenings with his new lawnmower, most often tackling Betty Gage’s lawn along with his own, simply to be neighborly. Barney supposes Mrs. Gage has to hire someone these days, most likely one of those boys trying to get close to Rosarie, although it seems as if no one’s been mowing the Williamses’ lawn lately; it’s a patchwork of weeds and black brambles. Vines have begun to grow over the shrubbery, weaving in and out of the polite quince leaves and the wel-mannered rhododendrons. Rose canes are dark and bare, even though the growing season is said to be excellent this year.

  As Barney is appraising the neglected yard, Kat Williams is called in by her grandmother, who first came to stay when Aaron Williams took ill. Looking out the window. Katya has glimpsed a strange man lurking on the sidewalk and she glares at Barney with pale, cold eyes.

  “Evening,” Barney calls to her.

  But Katya doesn’t recognize him, although he’d often come to call during the last weeks of Aaron’s life. Those days were a blur, best forgotten, and all Katya sees is a man posted in front of the Fords’ house. Immediately, she takes him for the sort of rubber-necker who gets a thrill from the sight of other people’s blood. They had a taste of that themselves last summer. People would stand on the sidewalk and stare at the garage, they’d drive past slowly, observing the house the way other people might study a natural disaster, a hurricane. perhaps, or a flash flood. Late at night, there were some who threw stones and shouted threats, and then, like the cowards they were, ran away to hide in the bushes as soon as the porch light was switched on. It’s no wonder Katya waves her hands at Barney as though shooing away flies, without so much as a hello.

  “Go home,” she tells him. “Learn to leave good people alone.”

  Kat Williams grins at the lawyer before she goes inside, and Barney knows exactly what she’s thinking.

  What did I tell you? None of us want you around.

  After the Williamses’ door slams shut. Barney feels he should go after them and explain that he’s only come to help. He’s a good-hearted man who hates his actions to be misunderstood. too frequently the case when he’s at home with his wife, Dana. What he wouldn’t give for someone to talk to, to have someone who would really listen to the way he feels, deep inside. He lives in a house of chattering girls where there is never a moment of quiet until everyone is asleep. It’s only at those moments, while his daughters and his wife are dreaming, that he often realizes he hasn’t said a word all day.

  Looking down Maple Street from his post outside the Fords’ house, Barney spies two cats in the road, lolling in the moonlight, as though they own the night world, two feline kings yowling at each other as they vie over the nesting birds in Mrs Gage’s cherry tree. There is no traffic, but an empty street can be deceiving. The reporters aren’t here yet, but they will be soon. A figure walks through the dark, and Barney realizes it’s Charlotte Kite who’s approaching. You can spot Charlotte anywhere because of that red hair of hers. and now she lights up the dark with both purpose and distress. She’s smoking a cigarette, although Barney cannot recall having seen her smoking before. He often sees her at the bakery when he stops there on his way to his office: he’s all but addicted to the cinnamon Danishes, even though he knows he could stand to lose a good fifty pounds.

  Although he’s several years older than Charlotte and Jorie, he remembers them well from high school. Pretty girls he never would have stood a chance with, not even if they could have gazed into the future to predict he’d attend Harvard Law School and go on to live in one of those big houses in Charlotte Kite’s neighborhood out beyond Horsetail Hill. They wouldn’t have looked at him twice, not if he’d had a million dollars in his pockets and had gotten down on bended knee, begging for their attention. He’d had an especially big crush on Charlotte, an embarrassing fact he’s never mentioned to anyone. Certainly, he’d never dared to act on his pathetic desire, or ever imagined she might one day respond. He may have been a loser back in school, but nobody could call him stupid, not then and not now.

  “Hey, there,” he says to Charlotte as she approaches. Charlotte’s expression is cloudy when she sees him; whether this is caused by the smoke from her cigarette or a haze of suspicion isn’t clear. “Barney Stark.” he reminds her.

  “Right,” Charlotte says, looking at him for further explanation.

  “I’m here in a professional capacity. Just checking in.”

  “Are you saying they’re going to need a lawyer?” Charlotte moves a little closer, even though there’s no one nearby who might overhear.

  “Innocent people need lawyers, too.” Barney reassures her.

  Charlotte is relieved. She herself has recently spent a small fortune on legal fees, and her only crime was marrying Jay. Of course they’ll need a lawyer. Charlotte has never paid Barney Stark any mind, but at this moment, in the dark, standing on the sidewalk facing Jorie’s house, their conversation feels oddly intimate. “You’re absolutely right. He’ll have to fight those crazy charges.”

  The Williams girl has left her jar of firetlies on the porch steps. Yellow orbs of light whirl against the glass.

  “Will you look at that,” Barney says. He’s talking too much and he knows it, but he may never get another chance to have Charlotte Kite listen to him. He might as well take advantage of the moment, for it will surely never come again. “So bright you could read by the light of those bugs.”

  “Well, they’ll be dead by morning.”

  Charlotte turns and looks him over. Barney lives two blocks away from her, in one of the brand-new pseudo-Victorians on Evergreen Drive, built a good century after the Monroe family went bankrupt and sold off parcels of land, but frankly. she doesn’t know much about him. She does take note of his Lexus, however. It’s a rather surprising choice for a large, plain man such as Barney, but perhaps he needs to show off his success. It’s all coming back to Charlotte; he was one of the kids people used to make fun of in high school. He was heavy and plodding and far too shy to ask out any of the girls. Now he’s rich and has three beautiful daughters, and Charlotte has nothing. “I’ll bet you’re one of those expensive lawyers, ”

  “Well, I am,” Barney admits. “But I’m good.”

  “I’m happy to put up some money for Ethan and Jorie, If it comes down to it.”

  Charlotte tosses her cigarette onto the sidewalk and red sparks rise upward. She may seem a little hard, but she’s anything but, and Barney isn’t the least bit surprised by her offer.

  “I’m sure they’d appreciate that.” Barney thinks of his daughters, safe in their beds, and he knows he won’t be able to sleep tonight. He’s something of an insomniac, and he often spends nights in an easy chair pulled up to the window in the living room. From the heights of his house on Evergreen Drive, beyond a hill where there used to be nothing but orchards, the very spot where Ella Monroe herself was married so long ago, he is always surprised to see a few lights blinking in Monroe after midnight. On street after street, there are sleepless, unhappy people, much like himself, trapped like fireflies inside their own houses.

  “I thi
nk I see Jorie.” Barney has spotted a shadow in an upstairs window. The curtain moves in the breeze. A few faded cherry blossoms dip through the sweet, dark, honeyed air, and Barney inhales deeply. He thinks of the first time he saw Charlotte Kite, when she wasn’t more than fourteen. He thinks of the way her red hair gleams in the sunlight in the mornings, as she stands behind the counter in the bakery. He realizes that Charlotte smells delicious, her aroma much sweeter than the honeysuckle in the night air, as if she could never wash the scent of chocolate or the granules of sugar from her skin. Oh, how he wishes he could tell her what he’s thinking. He knows he has a foolish look on his face, the stupid expression of bliss.

  “I’ve got an extra key,” Charlotte declares. “I’m going on in.”

  When she starts up the walkway, Barney keeps pace with her, but Charlotte quickly sets him right. “I don’t need any help, if that’s what you were thinking.”

  “Oh, no, of course not.” Barney recalls that she’d said something like this to him once before, ages ago, when they were in school. Charlotte had dropped her books in a rush to get to class, and he’d knelt to help gather some of the fallen papers. She’d looked him straight in the eye and told him not to touch anything. He’d felt as though she’d burned him with a single remark. His fingertips had puckered and blistered afterward, and he’d had to dust his hands with baking soda to ease the pain, and tonight he feels the same way all over again. She can burn him with one word. Even now.

  “I know Jorie better than anyone,” Charlotte says. “I can handle it.”

  In fact, she has handled everything in her life. Charlotte is not and never has been the sort of person to say please any more than she is likely to say thank you, and she has very little pity for the meek and the mild. Still, tonight she feels a strange sort of empathy for Barney, with his expensive, ill-fitting suit and his Lexus parked at the curb. Moonlight spills across the lawns on Maple Street and what looks like little stars are floating right past, a wave of milkweed spores, luminous and mysterious as they drift through the dark. Charlotte can see that she’s bruised Barney Stark somehow. He’s the kind of man who wears his heart on his rumpled sleeve.