Midnight Voices

  Alicia shook her head. “Dr. Humphries is coming—that’s who I thought you were. Maybe another day?”

  “Of course,” Irene assured her. “Give Rebecca my love, and tell her I might just bake up something special for her tomorrow.” Returning to the elevator, she pressed the button for the lobby. As the elevator rattled toward the ground floor through the shaft created by the staircase that wound all the way to the top of the eight-story building, Irene balefully eyed the panel of buttons that had several years ago displaced Willie from his job operating the elevator. Since her neighbors had voted to make the elevator self-service, she’d never quite felt safe. In the pre-button days, she’d always known that if anything went wrong, Willie would take care of it. But what would she do now? Call down to Rodney, who would come up the stairs, chat with her, but have no idea what to do? Well, perhaps it wouldn’t happen.

  More likely, she decided darkly, it would. Then, as the elevator rattled safely to a stop and released her from its cage, she put the thought out of her mind. “You’re taking me for a walk,” she announced to Anthony Fleming, who was looking at her with a bemused expression that told her he probably wouldn’t argue with her. “It’s a beautiful day, and it would be a shame to waste it.”

  “And suppose I had other plans?” Fleming asked, putting on a severe expression that Irene saw through in an instant.

  “Then you would cancel them,” she announced. “How much older than you do you think I am?”

  Fleming shrugged noncommittally. “A few years.”

  “A few decades, you mean,” Irene shot back tartly. “At least that’s how I feel today. And since that’s how I feel, I’m going to demand the privilege of age, and let you take me for a stroll through the park. We shall observe nature in its full bloom, and the vigor of youth. Perhaps it will make me feel better.”

  Anthony Fleming shrugged helplessly at Rodney, who was grinning from his kiosk, and held the front door open for Irene. “Where are we going? Or are we just wandering?”

  “Children,” Irene said, turning south. “Whenever I start feeling this old, I always like to watch children.”

  “Maybe you should have had some of your own,” Fleming observed.

  “Wanting to watch children is one thing. Wanting to have them is entirely another.” She sighed heavily. “And if my child got sick, I don’t know how I’d handle it.”

  “You’d handle it like everyone else does,” Anthony assured her. “You’d get through it.”

  “But it must be so hard.”

  There was a long silence, but then Anthony Fleming nodded in assent. “It is,” he agreed. “It’s very hard indeed.”

  Caroline and Laurie were still a couple of hundred yards from the playground when a voice called out from behind them. “Laurie? Laurie! Wait up!”

  Turning, Caroline saw Amber Blaisdell hurrying toward them. A blonde girl whose even-featured face was framed in the same pageboy haircut her mother wore, Amber was clad in Bermuda shorts and a white blouse with a sweater tied over her shoulders—exactly the same preppy uniform that half the girls at Laurie’s former school habitually wore when they weren’t wearing the school uniform itself.

  “Hey, Amber,” Laurie said as the other girl caught up with them.

  “A bunch of us are going to the Russian Tea Room for lunch! Want to go?”

  Caroline saw a flash of anticipation cross Laurie’s face, but it faded almost as quickly as it came. “I—I don’t think so,” she said. “I think I’m gonna hang with my mom.”

  “Oh, come on!” Amber urged. “It’ll be fun.” Her voice took on a slight edge. “Since you changed schools, we hardly ever see you anymore.”

  A look of uncertainty passed over Laurie’s features. “It’s not that.”

  “What is it?” Amber pressed. “You never want to do anything anymore.” She glanced at the small group of girls who were watching the interaction between herself and Laurie. “Some of the kids are starting to talk.”

  Laurie’s eyes flicked toward the group of her former classmates. “Talk about what?”

  Amber hesitated, as if not sure she should repeat what her friends were saying, but then decided to face it head on. “It just seems like you don’t want to be our friend anymore, that’s all.”

  “I want to be,” Laurie began. “I just—”

  But before she could finish, someone called out to Amber. “Are you coming? We’re going to be late.”

  Amber looked at Laurie one last time. “Come on,” she urged. “Come with us.”

  But still Laurie shook her head, and a second later Amber had disappeared into the gaggle of her friends. Caroline was almost certain she saw Laurie’s chin tremble slightly as she watched the girls who had been her best friends only a few short months ago now go off without her, and she slipped a comforting arm around her daughter’s shoulders. “I’m sorry,” she said as they set off once more toward the baseball diamond, where Ryan had already plunged into the milling group of boys who were just starting to choose up sides for their softball game. “Maybe we can find a way for you to go back to the Academy next year.”

  “No,” Laurie replied a little too quickly, with a note in her voice that warned Caroline not to push it. But a moment later as they found an empty bench close enough to the baseball diamond to offer a good view but far enough away not to embarrass Ryan, she suddenly spoke again. “It’s just—I don’t know—even if we could afford for us to go back to the Academy, I couldn’t do the things we used to do.”

  Caroline looked squarely at her daughter, and, in contrast to Ryan a few minutes earlier, Laurie seemed suddenly to have matured beyond her years. “You really don’t mind not going to the Academy?”

  Laurie shrugged. “I don’t know. I liked it okay when I was there. But it cost a lot, and since Dad . . .” Her voice trailed off, but she didn’t need to finish the thought. Private school was the first thing that had gone after Brad had died, and it had been one of the hardest things for Caroline to accept. Indeed, right up until the spring semester fees were due, she’d kept struggling to find the money to keep Laurie and Ryan in the school that she and Brad had worked so hard first to get them in to, then to pay for. But they’d both agreed it was worth it, since at the Elliott Academy they were not only getting a good education, but were safe as well.

  But the money simply hadn’t been there, and both she and the kids had had to face it. But now, after the interchange she’d just witnessed between Laurie and Amber Blaisdell, and the longing she’d seen in Laurie’s eyes as she watched her old friends go off without her, she wondered just how much the change in schools might really be damaging her children. Certainly the academic standards at the Elliott Academy were higher than in the public school, and it seemed like every week she read more and more reports of beatings and thievery and drug dealings by kids in public schools who were only a year or two older than Laurie.

  Should she have tried harder to find the money to pay their tuition at the Academy? But even as the question formed in her mind, she knew the answer: If there wasn’t enough money to pay the rent, there sure wasn’t enough to cover the costs of private school.

  I can’t do it, she thought. I just can’t cope with it all! But even as the words formed in her mind, she heard Brad’s voice whispering inside her head. “You can do it. You’ll find a way. You have to.”

  “And I will,” she said, not realizing she’d spoken out loud until her daughter looked at her curiously.

  “You’ll what?” Laurie asked.

  Once again, Caroline slipped her arm around her daughter’s shoulders. “I’ll figure it out,” she said.

  “Figure what out?”

  Caroline gave Laurie a quick squeeze. “Life,” she said. “That’s all. Just life.” Then she settled back to watch Ryan play softball, and for at least a little while her problems faded away into the warmth and brilliance of the perfect spring morning.

  Irene Delamond and Anthony Fleming walked four blocks down to 66
th Street, crossed Central Park West, and started into the park. The walking stick held lightly in her right hand, Irene tucked her left through Fleming’s arm, and glanced up at him. “You’re missing Lenore terribly, aren’t you?” She felt him stiffen, and gave his arm a reassuring squeeze. “We all miss her, Anthony. But because she’s gone doesn’t mean your life is over.”

  There was a long silence as Anthony seemed to turn the statement over in his mind, but at last he nodded, and when he spoke, Irene could hear the uncertainty in his voice. “I suppose you’re right. But it’s only been six months.”

  “Time is always relative, Anthony,” Irene observed as she turned down a path leading to the playground. “For the terminally ill, six months are a lifetime, and not a very long one. To a three-year-old waiting for Christmas, it’s an eternity so distant it’s not even worth thinking about.” She sighed. “To me it seems like a blink of an eye.”

  “And for me?” Anthony asked, looking down at Irene.

  Finally she saw a hint of a smile—the smile that was one of his best features—and just the faintest glimmer of a twinkle in his eyes, which managed to be the exact blue of turquoise while showing nothing of the stone’s hardness. “Well, I suppose that’s for you to decide, isn’t it?”

  Now his smile broadened. “Unless you or some of your busybody friends decide otherwise.”

  She swatted him playfully. “Is that any way to talk about your neighbors?”

  “I thought the big city was supposed to be anonymous,” he observed darkly.

  “It is. Except in The Rockwell, and I suppose in The Dakota, too.” She uttered the name of the building just up the street from their own with ill-concealed contempt.

  “What’s wrong with The Dakota? Except for us, it’s the only interesting building on the West Side.”

  “Actors,” Irene spat. “It’s filled with them. Loud parties, and all those perverted people. Can you imagine?”

  “As I recall we have an actress in The Rockwell, too.”

  “That’s different,” his companion sniffed.

  “Really?” Anthony countered. “How so?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? Virginia Estherbrook is one of us!” Her fingers tightened on Anthony Fleming’s arm once more, but this time there was nothing reassuring in the gesture. “And don’t think you can simply change the subject on me.” She guided him toward one of the baseball diamonds, where a group of shouting children were gathered around a man wearing the striped shirt of an umpire. “Let’s watch for a while,” she said as the group broke up into two teams. While one of the teams fanned out into the field and the other huddled together to establish a batting order, Anthony Fleming watched in amusement as Irene surveyed the benches behind the backstop, silently trying to anticipate which one she would choose. Men, a lot of whom seemed to know each other, occupied most of the benches and Anthony assumed that for the most part they were divorced, spending the weekend with the children they never saw during the week. Irene, just as he suspected she would, ignored the benches occupied by men, and headed instead toward one that was occupied by a woman who appeared to be a few years younger than he, and a girl who looked as if she was just shy of her teens.

  “Is this end of the bench taken?” Irene asked.

  The woman glanced up, shook her head, then returned her attention to the game that was just beginning on the baseball diamond. Irene settled herself onto the bench and patted the empty space next to her. When Anthony made no move to occupy it, she fixed him with a look. “Just for a few minutes,” she said. “It’s not going to kill you.”

  Anthony Fleming lowered himself reluctantly onto the bench, and waited to see what Irene Delamond’s opening gambit would be. It didn’t take long.

  “Is your son playing?” Irene asked, smiling at the woman.

  The woman nodded. “He’s in left field.”

  “He must be very good. They always put the bad players in right field.”

  The woman glanced at Irene. “I think he’d play every day, if he could. But since his father—” Suddenly her face colored, and she seemed to withdraw slightly. “He just doesn’t play as much as he’d like.”

  “What a shame,” Irene sighed, scanning the field.

  Anthony Fleming watched as her eyes came to rest on the boy in left field—who darted out to snag a fly ball faster than Fleming would have thought possible—and he was almost certain he saw a tiny nod of Irene Delamond’s head, as if the boy had just passed some sort of test to which the woman had silently subjected him.

  The boy suddenly looked directly at them, as if he was somehow aware of Irene’s scrutiny, but her attention was back on the woman at the other end of the bench.

  “There’s just not enough time anymore, is there?” she asked. “The children all seem to have so much to do nowadays.” She leaned forward slightly and spoke to the girl sitting on the other side of the woman. “What about you, young lady? Do you like baseball?”

  The girl shook her head, but said nothing, and finally the woman answered for her. “I promised her I’d take her to the Bronx Zoo this afternoon, but now I have to work. I—”

  “Mo-om!” The girl rolled her eyes in exasperated embarrassment. “Do you have to tell everyone everything?”

  “Oh, dear,” Irene fretted. “I’m afraid I’ve stuck my nose in where it doesn’t belong, haven’t I?”

  “No, of course not,” the woman assured her quickly. “It just hasn’t been the best morning for us, that’s all.” She turned to the girl. “And I don’t think I told her anything that’s a big secret, Laurie. I did promise to take you to the zoo.”

  The girl’s face burned with humiliation. “Will you stop treating me like a child?”

  “Actually, no she won’t,” Irene said before the girl’s mother could reply. “My mother treated me like a child until the day she died, and I was nearly sixty when that happened. If you think it’s bad now, just wait a few years. She’ll drive you stark raving mad.” Laurie, taken utterly by surprise by the elderly woman’s words, was now gaping at Irene, who winked at her. “It’s what mothers do,” Irene finished in an exaggerated whisper. “I think they don’t feel like they’re doing their job right if their children aren’t regularly made to feel like idiots.” Now the woman was staring at her too. “I’m Irene Delamond,” she said.

  “Caroline Evans,” the woman replied. “This is my daughter, Laurie.”

  “And this is my neighbor, Anthony Fleming,” Irene said.

  “Who must be getting along,” Anthony said promptly, rising to his feet.

  Irene glared at him. “Don’t be silly, Anthony. We just got here. Surely you can sit a few minutes?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t,” Fleming replied. He offered Caroline Evans a neutral smile. “Nice to have met you. And be careful of Irene—she’ll run your life for you if you give her half a chance. The best thing to do is get up and walk away, before she really gets started. Just like I’m doing right now,” he added pointedly as Irene started to say something. “Behave yourself, Irene.”

  Irene watched him go, then shifted her attention back to Caroline Evans, and sighed in frustration. “I swear, I don’t know what I’m going to do with that man.”

  “He seems very nice,” Caroline said.

  “He is,” Irene agreed. “But ever since his wife died . . .” Her voice trailed off, and then she appeared to shift an internal gear. “Well, you don’t need to hear about that, do you? Do tell me all about yourself, Caroline.”

  As she left the park an hour later, Irene Delamond’s mind was starting to work, and by the time she was back home, an idea was already taking shape. She made a few phone calls, but none of them were to Anthony Fleming. For the moment, at least, there was no reason for him to know what she was up to.

  No reason at all.

  CHAPTER 3

  Irene Delamond rang Virginia Estherbrook’s bell, rapped sharply on the door, then called out. “Virgie? Virgie, are you there?” She waited impatiently, s
tabbed at the doorbell once more, and was considering calling Rodney to bring up the master key when she finally heard the deadbolt open, and the chain drop. The door opened a crack, and a rheumy eye peered through the narrow gap.

  “Of course I’m here.” The voice was thin and raspy.

  “Don’t simply stand there, Virgie,” Irene said. “Let me in. And why on earth are you putting on the chain and using the deadbolt?”

  The door swung open far enough for Irene to slip through, then swung closed, and Irene could hear the deadbolt being thrown into place.

  “Look at me,” Virginia Estherbrook said so bitterly that Irene reached out and squeezed her shoulder reassuringly. “Wouldn’t you bolt the door if you looked like this?”

  Taking Virginia’s arm, Irene gently guided the frail woman through the dimly lit foyer of her apartment and into a living room that was even larger than Irene’s own, but so dimly lit that its darkly papered walls felt as if they were closing in on her. As Virginia lowered herself gingerly onto a straight-backed chair Irene went to the windows and pulled back the heavy drapes, letting the early afternoon light penetrate the room. Then she moved from lamp to lamp, turning them all on. All of them, at any rate, that worked. Three of the table lamps had burned out, and the three-way bulbs in the floor lamps had been replaced with regular sixty-watt bulbs. Vanity, vanity, Irene said silently to herself, thy name is Virginia Estherbrook. But when she finally gazed on her friend’s face, Irene felt a sharp stab of sympathy.