Brunonia Barry - The Map of True Places

ANN AND MICKEY CLOSED down the restaurant. It was surprising how much they had to talk about when they actually began to speak to each other. Mostly they talked about Zee and Maureen. And Mickey talked some about Ireland and about his brother Liam, the one who had died. They talked so much that they lost track of how late it was and were genuinely surprised when the waitress came over to tell them she was going home and would they please pay the check?

Ann excused herself and went to the ladies’ room. As she washed her hands, she looked into the mirror for a long time, trying to see something in her face, something that had changed.

Mickey paid the check and caught up with her at the door. They walked past the wharf and toward Ann’s shop.

“You want to come in?” she asked.

“Into your store?” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “I’ll make you some tea.”

He looked at her. “What kind of tea?” he asked, thinking about the kind she was famous for.

She smiled at him.

“You sure?” he said.

“I’m not at all sure,” she said. “But I’m feeling adventurous tonight.”

“Okay,” he said, following her into the store, waiting as she locked the door behind them and led him through the beaded curtain to the back room. “But I won’t be needing any tea.”

“We’ll see,” she said.

ZEE MISSED THE LAST boat home. It was ten-thirty. She’d stayed until the very end, through the traditional first dance, the cutting of the cake, and the tossing of the bouquet.

She walked back from the wharf to the front of the hotel and the taxi stand where Michael stood with his date waiting for the valet. She nodded to him as she passed.

He excused himself and followed.

“Zee?” he said.

She turned around. They had managed to stay away from each other all night. Mattei and Rhonda had seated them at opposite sides of the room, Zee with her colleagues and Michael with his.

“Happy birthday,” he said.

“Thanks.”

“I was going to ask you to dance,” he said. “But I got cold feet.”

“It’s probably better that you didn’t,” Zee said, looking toward his date.

Michael shrugged. “You’re more daring than I am. I didn’t want to come here alone tonight.”

She smiled.

“How’s Finch?”

“Not very well,” she said.

“Mattei told me he took a fall,” he said.

“He’s in a nursing home,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Thanks.”

“I’m also sorry about the way I ended things,” he said.

“It was pretty brutal,” she said.

“And cowardly,” he added.

“Maybe.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

“Apology accepted.”

“I was pushing you into something you clearly weren’t ready for,” he said.

“I don’t think what I was or not ready for was clear in any way,” she said. “Least of all to me.”

“And is it clear now?”

It was an odd question to ask, particularly with his new date standing only a few yards away. Still, she knew he deserved an answer and that she had never given him one.

“It is,” she said.

“And?”

“Good-bye, Michael,” she said.

ROY SAT AT THE kitchen table counting his money. Four hundred and fifty dollars. Plus the money he’d taken off the girl. He hadn’t counted it yet, really had only taken it to make things look like a robbery. The thought of Hawk behind bars made him laugh out loud. He’d left the hammer with Adam’s name on it right next to the body where they would be sure to find it. Roy knew they’d figure things out eventually, but by the time they did, he’d be long gone.

He spun the lazy Susan around and looked at the cake. HAPPY BIRTHDAY ZEE, it said. The letters were crooked and sloping.

Roy was hungry. He wanted to eat the cake, but he needed something more. He’d already drunk almost two bottles of the wine he’d found in the rack. He wasn’t fond of wine, but it was all he could find. He peered into the refrigerator for some food, but there were only two very old-looking sandwiches that he wasn’t about to touch. Didn’t anyone shop for groceries anymore? Roy found some American cheese in the vegetable bin, individually wrapped slices. He checked the date on the side of the package and unwrapped a piece.

He couldn’t believe they’d laid him off. He’d been foreman at Cassella Construction for almost twelve years. They’d said it was cutbacks, but you don’t fire your foreman for cutbacks. You do that and your whole crew goes to hell, taking long lunches or not showing up to work on time. Stupid fuck didn’t know what the hell he was doing.

Besides the paycheck, the worst part was losing the company truck. He’d had to buy an old, beat-up Chevy with his last paycheck, and the damned thing burned oil like a motherfucker. He’d ditch it as soon as he got out of state, if it even made it that far. The thought of the Chevy as a getaway car made him laugh, and he realized he was drunk. He took out the coke he had bought with the last of his money and drew some lines on the table, sucking them up through the gold-cross straw he’d taken from her neck. Christian, right, he thought. So Christian that he’d walked in on her with another guy. He’d been planning to surprise her, bought the drugs she liked with money he should have been saving. Well, he’d surprised her all right, in the end. As soon as the other guy left the house, he’d surprised the hell out of her.

The coke woke him up. Where the fuck was the shrink? He wasn’t a guy who liked to wait, and for a minute he thought it wasn’t worth it, but then he thought of Lilly and what she had done to her, and his rage flared. How dare she tell Lilly to stay away from him? It was Hawk she should have told her to stay away from, not him. He loved Lilly.

He had loved her on Halloween night when he’d gone to her house to take her with him, though he couldn’t make her believe him. He had taken the gun just in case anyone tried to stop him. He hadn’t meant to threaten her family. He’d only done that because she’d told him she wouldn’t come with him. The cat was something else. He’d always hated that cat. But he wouldn’t have hurt her family. She had to know that. He confessed his undying love for her, something he’d never done before for any woman. He even told her he’d kill himself if she didn’t come, and still she’d refused him. And then something just snapped in him, and he heard himself threatening to kill them all. He only said it so she would believe him, so she’d know how much he loved her. She had to know he didn’t mean it.

In the days that followed, he didn’t mean to hit her either, but she just wouldn’t stop crying, telling him she wanted to go home. Roy didn’t blame Lilly for that. He blamed the shrink.

Roy pounded his fist on the table, and the cocaine dusted upward, then settled back down again in a wide arc, leaving a film on the surface of the old oak table.

He’d been following Hawk for the last week, waiting for the right time. But that time hadn’t come. When he’d followed him here, Roy knew he’d hit the jackpot. Hawk just sat in his van, looking at the house. Drove right by Roy when he left, never even seeing him. A minute later her Volvo pulled into the driveway, and Dr. Finch got out and went into the house. Roy couldn’t believe his good fortune. He’d been trying to get to her all summer, ever since Lilly died, maybe even before.

Roy counted his money one more time and wondered how long he could make it last. He’d already rifled through all the drawers in this house, upturning some of them, making it look like a real robbery. He was searching for money-he was going to need it. But there was nothing here, just books and a few prescriptions in the medicine cabinet upstairs, which he pocketed. There was no cash and nothing decent that he could pawn.