Theaella

43

“I don’t want you to go back to your truck just yet,” Matthew said. “I’ll take you to a random street corner and call you a cab.”

“I thought you said it was safe.”

“It is,” Matthew said. But I don’t like how a guy smiled right before I shot him. And my paranoia has no limits when it comes to interrupting a long rest and a good drink.

Was it paranoia? Or was he reluctant to let go? Because once he admitted it was over, then the Nowhere Man was over, too. And without the Nowhere Man, who the hell was Matthew Smoak?

Jack was squinting at him impatiently.

“We’ll destroy your disposable phone, and I’ll give you a fresh one,” Matthew said. “Don’t turn it on unless you’re in trouble or until you’re done talking to the cops. Then call me again. I’ll go with you to your truck. And then to your apartment.”

“Why? Is this over or not?”

“It’s over,” Matthew said. “But no one ever got killed by being too careful.”

Awful Shit

Alone in the backseat of the cab halfway to the police station, Jack had a change of mind. “Hang on,” he told the driver. “Make a U-turn. I need to take a quick detour.”

“Your wish is my command,” the driver said, spinning the steering wheel with the heel of his hand like he was turning around a big rig.

Twenty minutes later they were coasting up a broad street, palm trees nodding overhead. The block was lined with parked cars.

“Looks like someone’s having a party,” the driver said.

“Could you slow down, please?”

As they passed the house, Jack spotted the catering vans in the driveway and felt a familiar hollowness at his core. “Pull up here on the right,” he said. “Up a little farther. A little farther.”

The cab crept beside a tall hedge at the neighbor’s house. “If I didn’t know better,” the driver said, “I’d think we were trying to hide.”

Jack opened the door, set one foot on the curb. “Would you mind waiting for me?”

“Your dollar, your desire.”

Leaving the idling taxi behind, Jack eased out from behind the hedge, the Spanish-style mansion edging into view. On either side of the porch, immense concrete pots held artfully spiraled lilies, a tornado of white buds.

The post-funeral reception.

The front edge of dusk muted the sky, making the house lights pop. The drawn front curtains allowed a panoramic view of the expansive front room and the crush of well-wishers it accommodated—cops and cousins and colleagues. Scattered throughout, men and women with coiffed hair and impressive bearings seemed to have their own gravitational fields, drawing whirlpools of beholders. Community leaders, no doubt, like Grant.

Wearing an elegant widow-black dress, Jill was in the thick of it, directing traffic in between fusillades of cheek kisses. Despite her concerns she was managing the event with the family’s usual aggressive competence.

The swinging door to the kitchen emitted a steady stream of servers bearing silver trays laden with canapés. Failed actors in white shirts and black vests scurried from the catering vans, hauling Saran Wrapped serving platters, royal chafers, crates of glassware.

Standing among the impeccably trimmed juniper cones, Jack suddenly felt quite small. Whatever he’d planned on saying, it wouldn’t get said. Not here, not now.

And yet he found himself unwilling to take his eyes off the scene inside. As he scanned the crowded room, he realized he was searching for Violet.

One of the servers hauling food from the van paused en route to the house and caught Jack lurking there among the shrubbery. A flash of white teeth. “Hi. Are you with the party?”

Jack’s T-shirt was rumpled, his jeans worn, and he was three days unshaven. He’d cleaned off his shoes before getting into Matthew’s car, but smudges of mud remained at the outsoles.

“Yeah,” Jack said. “But now I’m feeling a little overdressed.”

The guy laughed. His tray was spotted with what looked to be endives filled with candied walnuts.

Jack said, “I was his cousin.”

“I’m sorry. That sucks. What happened to him.”

Jack nodded.

“Well, come on in. There’s certainly plenty to eat.” The server hoisted his tray and vanished inside.

To avoid further attention, Jack took a few strides to the side of the house. Two years and seven months later, and here he was blending into the vegetation, risking humiliation. Just to catch a glimpse of her.

The sounds carrying over the adobe wall signaled that the reception had already filled the backyard, too. The wall wasn’t much taller than Jack’s head, but he wasn’t going to risk peeking over.

As he turned to leave, the hardwood arched gate clicked open and his father walked through, head lowered, extracting a cigarette from his shirt pocket. They almost collided, the Marlboro falling to the gunmetal-gray wood chips carpeting the flower beds.

“Oh, excuse m—” Terry looked up, recognized his son, and froze. “Jack. I was just…” His hands circled as if to conjure up a better excuse. “Sneaking a smoke.” He patted the air. “I know, I know. I’m too old, they’ll kill me, lung cancer and blood clots. I just have the occasional stick. When I’m … upset.”

His expression slackened for an instant, and Jack saw the grief he’d been holding in. His father had always loved being Uncle Terry to Grant. It was as though the image of himself he saw reflected back in Grant’s eyes was better than what he’d been expecting.

Until Violet, Jack had never gotten it. How you could like yourself better just because someone else did. With her, for a brief time, he’d seen his own promise and potential. Even his own deep-buried flaws and vulnerabilities had been teased to the surface and warmed by the light of her gaze until he understood that maybe they weren’t so unique, so shameful. They were just other pieces of himself that he had a shot at accepting because, after all, she had.