I don’t know what happened to Marti’s dream. But was it my fault, I wonder, the death of my dreams? Did I cling too much to the past? Was there something in me that wished to be back in that time when love seemed so pure, so good, rather than the way it was with Jeffrey?
Even now, months later, it sickens me to remember the way I found my husband with that bimbo on the sheets I had only that morning laundered, her breasts dangling over his chest, him gobbling them up like a starving orphan while that poor pitiful part of him that, to my knowledge, hadn’t functioned for weeks, stood ramrod straight, poking into every opening in a way I’d long since tired of it poking into me.
By then my marriage had come down to doing other things that pleased Jeffrey, like adding Bounce to the dry cycle so the sheets wouldn’t scratch his sensitive skin. If I’d known what he was doing with her while I was at the office struggling to come up with a witty new column, I’d have dumped a bottle of Drano into the wash.
Damn Viagra, anyway. That’s what started the whole thing.
Not that I really cared. I’d given up loving Jeffrey long before, and who can blame him for seeking solace in the hills, even if those hills were made of boundless pasty-white flesh?
So, yes, I caught the dream, then threw it away. But wouldn’t you know, there are still the damned penances to pay. Not Hail Marys nor Our Fathers, as in the past. That would be too easy an out. For my penance I have the fact that, even though Jeffrey is still around, still sleeps on a couch in the house to keep the rumormongers at bay, there is another memory now, one less warming to take into that time when I’m shuffling along a cold corridor with people who wear bibs and shout for help, though they know not where they are.
And, oh, Marti. You who were so shining bright. Where have you been, and who have you been with, that you should end up this terrible way? You can’t be dead, Marti. Can you? Surely you will rise up and laugh any moment now, teasing, “The joke’s on you this time, Abby! I finally got you!”
I would give anything if the joke were on me. Anything at all.
“Abby.” Ben Schaeffer, detective on the Carmel P.D., stands beside me. His brow is furrowed, his hazel eyes dark with sympathy. “Sorry. I know you were good friends.”
I nod, though my neck seems as stiff and unbending as my mind, which will not wrap itself around this terrible thing. “Thanks for talking the sheriff into letting me through the lines. How much longer do you think it’ll be?” I clear my throat and try to steady my voice. “Can’t they cover her up or something? It’s not right, her lying there on the ground like that. And the damned rain won’t stop, it just keeps coming down and down and down—”
Ben puts a hand on my arm. “Steady, Ab. It shouldn’t be too much longer. I’ll see if I can do something to speed things up.”
I watch his tall frame move with authority toward the coroner and the two sheriff’s deputies hovering over Marti. Several yards behind me, pushing against the yellow crime line, are the eager photographers and reporters, some of whom are co-workers. One, Billy Drubin, stands with his hands stuck in the pockets of a drab raincoat, his shoulders hunched.
“Hey, Abby, what’d you find out?”
When I don’t answer, he says, “You’re not covering this for your column, are you? How come they let you inside the line?”
I walk over to him, knowing he won’t leave me alone unless I do. The others are watching us, picking up every word we say. If I talk to Billy, I tell myself like someone in a dream, the rest will go away.
“Marti’s a good friend,” I say. “I’ve known her for years.”
“Geez, that’s rough, Abby. Sorry. What happened? They got a clue?”
“No. It’s too soon.”
“Are you on it?”
“For Round the Town? Hardly.”
“Even so, if you knew her…” He takes a crumpled pack of Marlboros out of a pocket, taps one out and lights it. His match sputters, and within moments the cigarette is soggy from the rain. He leaves it dangling from the corner of his mouth. “Hey,” he says, “why don’t you talk to me? Tell me all about her. The inside story, things we don’t already know, I mean.”
I look at him, wary suddenly. “What inside story, Billy?”
His pale blue eyes are bright, avid. “Well, you know, there’ve been rumors. She was pretty famous for a while, the top of the heap as far as photojournalists go. So what happened? Why did she disappear all of a sudden? Hell, Abby, no one’s seen her around for months. And what’s that ‘I LIED’ all about? And the scar on her belly?”
I stare at him, wondering how I ever got to be part of this ravenous mass of vultures called “the press.”
“I have to go, Billy.”
“I mean, if you were that close,” he insists, tossing the cigarette to the ground, “you must have some idea where she’s been. And what she’s been up to.”
Anger seeps into my zombie-like state. It is, perhaps, the first glimmer of reality setting in.
“Dammit, Billy, drop it! I don’t know!”
Turning back, I see that the small group of men surrounding Marti has begun to disperse. Ben is still there, talking to the sheriff and Ted Wright, the coroner, and a body bag is being zipped over the bruised and battered torso of my friend. A sharp pain hits me in the gut as her once-beautiful face disappears inside the black plastic. Tears flood my eyes.
Ben looks at me and strides through the mud in my direction, his jeans and running shoes becoming splattered with thick brown goo. He puts a comforting arm around my shoulders, and I lean on him only slightly, more aware now of the media and what might show up in the evening news.
“Will Jeffrey be home tonight?” he asks quietly.
I shake my head. “He’s in Washington.”
“My place?” Ben asks even more quietly. “In an hour?”
I hesitate, nodding toward the coroner’s van, into which Marti is being loaded now. “Don’t you have work to do?”
“The sheriff’s in charge out here. And there’ll be a countywide task force.” He looks at his watch. “I have a couple of hours.”
Once, I would have gone with Ben out of reckless abandon, even revenge. What’s sauce for the goose. I was still angry with Jeffrey then. Now my husband and I barely talk. We live under the same roof out of expediency, pretending at marriage while leading vastly separate lives.
My only thought at the moment, therefore, is to feel Ben’s arms around me. To slip between his cool, familiar sheets and forget.
Thank God for Ben, the safe one, I think. In all the madness of Jeffrey’s unfaithfulness, Ben has been here, a good friend, steadfast as the day is long. He’s the one I can trust not to betray me. Ever.
“I want to see her again,” I say, my voice thick with sorrow. “I never really said goodbye.”
“I’m sure that can be arranged.” Ben stands behind me, his arms wrapped around my waist, the two of us staring out his living-room window at the leaden sea.
“Where is she now?”
“She’ll be at the coroner’s office for a while,” he says. “An autopsy, you know.”
I shiver. The coroner will take his bloody knives and saws and cut into my friend. He will break her breastbone to get at her heart and carve out her stomach to get—
“Can I see her before they do all that?”
“I’ll check, okay?”
He lifts my hair, planting a light kiss on the back of my neck before going to the telephone in the kitchen. Across the breakfast