“Stop that!” she told him. “Stop playing these fucking games and talk to me like an adult. We’re not competing to see who wins this argument here. I’m telling you that we are going to sell this house and move.”
“And I’m telling you we’re not.”
“Well, the kids and I are. Your mother too, probably. We’re getting out of here. We’re moving back to California—”
“No, we’re not.” His smile stopped her. There was something strained and artificial about it that frightened her. She was reminded suddenly of an old friend from college, Teri Yu, who, for a brief period of time, had been involved in an abusive relationship. Her boyfriend, Todd something or other, had hit her and beaten her, but Teri always gave the usual unprovable excuses that she’d tripped and fallen, hit her head on a piece of furniture or twisted her arm on the stairs. One evening, however, they’d double-dated, gone to a Jethro Tull concert at the Forum, and in the parking lot afterward, Teri and Todd had gotten into some kind of argument. Todd had slapped her, and he would have done more had not Julia stepped between them and faced him down. His expression at that moment had been terrifying: he was smiling, yet filled with anger, filled with hate.
And he’d looked, at that precise second, exactly like this.
She stared at Gregory. He stared back. She knew they’d been drifting apart, but the thought came to her that they did not know each other at all. She had no idea who this man was anymore, and that frightened her more than she could say.
Then the expression was gone from his face, and her feeling with it, and Gregory just seemed to deflate. The stubbornness was gone, the anger, the hatred, and she saw the fear beneath his bluster, the confusion and vulnerability behind his macho mask.
She saw her husband again.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry.” There were tears pooling in his eyes, and for the first time she saw how hard all this had been on him. He was stressed out too, and instinctively she reached over to him, put her arms around him, hugged him. They’d drifted so far apart that they’d been unable to read each other’s moods. Maybe that was at the root of their problem—lack of communication. They were both the same people they’d always been, neither of them had changed, and she thought that maybe their recent adversarial relationship had arisen from the strangeness of circumstance rather than any true differences between them.
“I didn’t mean for it to turn out this way.”
“I know,” she told him.
“I’ve failed all of you. I didn’t want to—”
“Shhh,” she said. “Shhhhh. It’s all right.” She held him, felt the familiar contours of his body beneath her fingers, the ridges of his collarbone, the muscles in his back, and for the first time in a long while, she felt close to him, truly close to him. They were going to see this through, she thought, they were going to make it, they were going to survive.
“I love you,” she told him.
“And you were going to leave me?”
“I couldn’t leave you.”
“Then give it one more chance,” he said. “A month. And if things haven’t changed, things haven’t improved, we’ll sell the house and move somewhere else. Back to Downey… wherever you want.”
She wanted to argue, knew that she should stick to her guns. This wasn’t a problem between them, it was something else, something bigger, and the need to leave seemed imperative. It made no logical sense, but she felt as though the chance to move was a rare window of opportunity that was being offered them, a window that soon would close, and close forever.
But he was asking her, begging her, pleading with her, and she owed him at least that much. It had been his dream to come here, it meant a lot to him, and it was only for a month. Besides… maybe she was overreacting, letting her emotions dictate her thoughts.
“I swear. One thing more and we’re out of here. Packed and gone. McGuane in our rearview mirror.”
There was something about his voice that rang false to her, and she had the sudden desire, the sudden need, to look at his face and see if the deception she thought she heard was really there, but he was still hugging her, holding her tight, his head on her shoulder, her head on his, and she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.
“All right,” she said. “Okay. One month.”
2
The café was closed, as it had been for the past three days, but Paul’s car was parked in the alley, and Gregory used his own key to unlock the front door. He walked inside. “Paul?”
There was no response. He shut the door behind him, looked around. Nothing had been touched since that night. Yellow police ribbon still circled the mangled mess of lights and rigging that littered the better part of the room. Even from here, Gregory could see dried bloodstains on the floor and on the smashed tables and chairs.
He had not spoken to Paul since the funeral, and then it had been merely a generic “I’m sorry,” that echoed the words of the people in line in front of him. He felt bad that he had not called, had not made more of an effort to be there for his friend. He’d sent a condolence card, but that was even more impersonal, and he knew he should have talked to Paul, but the truth was that he did not feel close enough to him to do that. Sure, they’d been hanging together for the past few months, but before that it had been nearly twenty years since he’d seen him, and Paul had to have friends who were closer to him than Gregory, had to have formed relationships with other people in the intervening years.
Gregory felt strange being here alone like this. He should’ve called Odd first, brought him along. He had no idea what to say or do, but he’d already committed to this course of action, and again he called out, “Paul?”
There was noise in the back.
“It’s Gregory!”
Paul emerged from the office area, looking bad. He obviously hadn’t shaved since the funeral, and although he had changed out of his suit, his clothes were wrinkled, dirty, and disheveled. “What are you doing here?”
Gregory shuffled his feet awkwardly. “I just… I came to find out how you were doing, see if you need any help with anything.”
“How I’m doing? How I’m doing?” Paul strode across the floor toward him, fists clenched. “How the fuck do you think I’m doing? My wife is dead.”
Gregory licked his lips. “I thought you might need some help with the cleanup—”
“Cleanup? What am I supposed to clean up? This place is history. After the victims finish suing my ass, I’ll be lucky to own the fucking clothes on my back.” He shoved a finger in Gregory’s chest. “I never would’ve done any of this if you hadn’t bullied me into it!”
“Bullied you?”
“You think I wanted to have concerts in my café? I never even thought of that before!”
Gregory felt himself being drawn into the argument. “You were complaining that you were barely making enough money to survive. I was just trying to help you out.”
“You were on an ego trip. You were bored and rich and looking for something to do, and you thought you’d come and lord it over the people you used to know. And now Deanna is dead because of it.”
“Wait a minute—”
“You never liked her anyway, did you? Are you happy now? Got what you wanted?”
Gregory held up his hands. “Sorry,” he said. “I just came by to see how you were. If you don’t want me here…”
“A little late for that, isn’t it? I never wanted you here at all. And if I’d listened to what that little voice was telling me, my wife would be alive.”
Gregory felt his anger building. “It’s not my fault. The rigging collapsed. It was an accident.”