“That’s disgusting.”
“What’s disgusting, Hal, is that just because I’m forty-five you think I should dress like your mother.”
“What’s wrong with the way my mother dresses?”
“Oh, for god’s sake, Hal, it was just a figure of speech.”
Hal lapsed into a sullen silence. Did he really think she was interested in Shoe? Maureen wondered, staring out the passenger side window. Or, if she was, that she’d do anything about it? If she was honest with herself, and she tended to be, she’d be the first to admit that she found Shoe attractive. What was not to be attracted to? Well, lots, actually. He wasn’t exactly handsome. His jaw was crooked, his nose was bent, and there was something oddly asymmetrical about his cheekbones. In fact, he looked as though someone had taken a baseball bat to his face. But he seemed to be in great shape, didn’t drink much, didn’t smoke, and, most refreshing, did not litter his speech with profanity, whereas she had a vocabulary that would make Tony Soprano blush. He wasn’t a prude. Swearing just wasn’t a habit he’d acquired. She wondered what his views were on cunnilingus.
“What’s funny?” Hal asked tartly.
“Eh?”
“You laughed.”
“Did I?”
“Yes, you did.”
“Sorry.”
Poor Hal. He was as unlike his brother as a man could be. He was overweight, drank too much, smoked (although he didn’t know she knew), swore, albeit not as much as she did, and seemed to think that oral sex of any variety was disgusting. A man who doesn’t like fellatio, her friend Dinah had said to her once, was as rare as a duck that doesn’t like water. “Not that I’m especially keen on it,” she’d added, “but I don’t mind doing it if I know I can expect something in return. Fortunately, Clark is as happy to give as to receive.” Maureen’s experience with either was sadly limited.
Nor was Hal the same man she’d married twentyfive years ago. Maybe what she found so attractive and exciting about Shoe was that he reminded her a little of Hal when he’d been younger. Or maybe she was just making excuses for herself. There was an element of danger about Shoe that Hal had never possessed. There was also an odd, almost contradictory vulnerability about him. Shoe brought out the protective side of her that Hal never had, but at the same time he brought out her submissive side as well. Although she had never been a fan of the adventure romance novels Dinah consumed like air, Maureen laughed at the sudden and completely ridiculous image of herself on the heaving deck of a stormtossed sailing ship, bodice of her gown ripped, clinging to Shoe’s sinewy arm as he steered the ship between treacherous shoals to the safety of a sheltered bay, where they made tender passionate love on a white sand beach.
“What’s funny now?” Hal demanded as he turned the car into the driveway of their house in Oakville and shut down the engine.
“You don’t want to know,” Maureen muttered, half under her breath.
chapter nine
The envelope fell from between the pages of a pink, vinyl-covered diary with a tiny clasp lock, which she’d had to break open with a nail file. It was a standard No. 10 business envelope, folded once. The crease was sharp and the paper crackled dryly as she unfolded it. There was no stamp, no return address, just her first name written large on the front. She lifted the flap of the envelope and extracted a single sheet of typewriter paper, folded three times. It was a letter, written in a neat, even hand.
Dear Rachel,
I’m sorry to have to say goodbye to you like this, rather than in person. Please forgive me. I hope you will not be too angry with me for too long. That would make me sad. Much sadder that I am already.
I will miss all you kids — you, Marty, Bobby, Mickey, and the others — but I will miss you most of all. I will never have children of my own and getting to know you and the other kids — But mostly you! — made me realize how much I will be missing.
Please tell the other kids goodbye for me. Especially Marty. She’s very lucky to have a friend like you.
Say goodbye to your brothers, too. From what you told me about Joe, he sounds like a good boy. It’s a shame he was too shy to talk to me. I hope he and Joey can patch up their friendship. And don’t be too hard on Hal. He’s a good boy too. He just fell in with the wrong crowd for a while.
Rachel, after I’m gone, you may hear people say bad things about me, some of which you may not understand until you are older. Please remember, though, that things are not always as they seem.
Thank you for being my friend. I will remember you forever.
The letter was signed, Marvin, your favourite Martian, and the signature was embellished with a simple cartoon of a little man with big feet and stubby antennae above pointy ears.
The drawing blurred as tears filled her eyes. She swallowed the hard lump in her throat. The sadness she felt was an almost physical thing, not quite pain, not quite emptiness, in the middle of her chest. She’d completely forgotten about the letter, just as she had all but forgotten him. I will remember you forever, he’d written. She touched the letter, running her fingertips along the words. Had he remembered her? She hoped so.
She heard a noise behind her and turned. Joe was on the basement stairs, caught in the act of reversing direction to go back up again.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”
“You’re not,” she said, wiping the tears from her eyes with the tips of her fingers.
“Are you all right?” he said, descending again.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I found a letter Marvin Cartwright wrote me when he left.” She handed the letter to him. He read it quickly, then handed it back to her. “I don’t remember how I got it. I mean, I remember reading it, I think, but not getting it.” She looked at the letter again, scanning the text, then looked up. “I don’t remember people saying bad things about him,” she said.
“You were pretty young. A lot of people were sure he was the Black Creek Rapist.”
“Not Mum and Dad, though.”
“No, I think they knew him a little better than most. Or tried to.”
Rachel looked at the letter again. Please tell the other kids goodbye for me, Mr. Cartwright had written. Had she? She didn’t remember. She didn’t remember telling anyone about the letter, not her parents, not Joe or Hal, not even Marty. Some best friend, she thought sadly. But she hadn’t seen much of Marty after her attack; she’d stopped coming round the house, despite her gigantic crush on Joe. She could have tried harder to stay in touch, though, Rachel thought guiltily.
“I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye to you for him,” she said to Shoe.
“That’s all right,” he said. “I hardly knew him.”
“Were you too shy to talk to him?”
“I suppose I was,” he said.
She glanced at the letter again. “You never did patch things up with Joey, did you?”
“No,” he said quietly.
Joey Noseworthy had been Joe’s best friend from the first grade until their final year of junior high school. People had called them Joe and Little Joe; by fourteen, Joe was almost six feet tall, whereas Joey had barely made it past five feet. While their friendship lasted, they’d been virtually inseparable; Joey had spent as much time at their house as Marty, and Rachel had had as big a crush on Joey as Marty had had on Joe. In their final year of junior high school, however, Joey had stopped coming round and Joe had