The cold drove Ruby to Cabo, and Janine went along. Not that she felt any particular need to escape, but Ruby insisted, and it was easier to go than not. Cabo was all beaches and reddening white people and tall clichéd drinks, and when they returned to find the cold still settled in as though it were now landlord and they temporary tenants, Janine regretted the trip, although she said nothing. It was the Tuesday after their return, the first day with a whiff of warmth on the breeze, and they took advantage by meeting for an optimistic late lunch on the patio of La Franca. When Janine arrived, she found Ruby with a tall sharp-featured woman introduced as Susan. They ordered fruit and cheese, and Susan, Janine noticed, kept track of what everyone ate with her eyes. Either she was a wannarexic, or she was going to be painfully awkward when it came to the bill. Or both.
“We looked all over the cabana,” Ruby said, “but the maid had just come in to clean, and I knew she hadn’t been able to resist the temptation. I called the front desk and ratted her out, I called Amex to cancel, I was freaking out. You remember?”
Ruby turned to Janine, who swirled the wine in her glass and took a sip. She turned back to Susan.
“That is the reason to go with Amex. J found the card in my purse like ten minutes later and they let me keep the same one and everything.”
The sunlight was coming in on a slant. 3:30, and the day was already thinking about turning in. A horizon-cloud rimmed with gold like a china plate slipped in front of the sun, and the air began to turn.
“I found a credit card once in a parking lot in Short Hills,” Susan said. “It was an American Express gold card.”
“When?” Ruby asked.
“Oh, five years ago, maybe.”
“What did you do?”
“Told Terrence that dinner was on me.”
“Very funny. Seriously, what do you do when you find a card like that? Call American Express?”
“I just kept it.”
“Excuse me?”
“I kept the card.”
The heat lamp roared quietly over the table, and the cloud continued on its way. Sunlight glanced over the table, the wine throbbing red in the bottle.
“You know,” Ruby said, “you’re right. I’m sure the card was already cancelled. There’s no sense in running around looking for someone who dropped it God knows when.”
“The card wasn’t cancelled.”
“Oh.” Ruby leaned back in her chair, then, in an oddly birdlike way, cocked her head. “Wait, how did you…”
“I used it.” Susan turned to Janine as she spoke, holding her gaze as though, what?, daring her to judge, asking her to commiserate, prompting her to laugh. The silence lingered. Janine looked away. Beyond her car, the trees crowding the parking lot looked almost human in their winter skeletons, their limbs bent and glittering under a shag of ice. The wind skidded a plastic bag across the lot, but the trees remained rigorously still.
“I bought lipstick,” Susan went on, “and cigarettes and a bottle of $200 bourbon for Terrence. And I went on a little spree for myself.”
She shrugged her pashmina onto the chair-back behind her, revealing the clean drape of her skirt and a white blouse. She inclined to the right, exposing the tanned deep cup of her clavicle and, as the shirt gapped, the silk white of her bra strap. She smiled.
“La Perla,” she said.
Ruby’s laugh tinkled across the table like broken glass.
“Janine,” she said, “don’t listen to her. She’s a kidder.”
Janine showed no sign of listening.
“Except I’m not kidding.”
“Right. You’re wearing the same bra you bought five years ago.”
“I said I went on a spree. It’s not like I only bought one.”
“Still, sounds like its time for a few new bras, honey.”
“Some of us are still the same size we were five years ago.”
Janine reached across the flushed silence and speared a grape on the leftmost tine of her fork. She bit it in two, examined it. A pale seed quivered in the grape’s flesh, held in place by a single gelatinous thread.
“Oh honey,” Ruby said, “I see now. If you’d needed money, you just should have asked someone. You didn’t have to steal to keep up.”
“No,” Susan laughed, “money was not a problem.”
“So what was your problem?”
“No problem.”
“I’d say being a criminal is a problem.”
“Nothing happened,” Susan shrugged. “No checking ID, no police, no lightning striking me down from above.”
“That doesn’t mean it isn’t wrong.”
“Being wrong is what made it right.” Susan shook her head a little, turned to Janine once again, and shrugged. What are we going to do with a prude like Ruby? Janine poured herself a little more wine. Ruby joined Susan in turning to Janine.
“Well J, how does it feel to be made an accomplice?”
Susan rolled her eyes.
“I see you rolling your eyes at me. And don’t worry, I’m not going to call the police or anything, but I don’t appreciate being made an accomplice either.”
“I’m just telling you a story.”
“Is it a true story?”
“Yes, but that doesn’t make you an accomplice. Stop being so histrionic.”
“Wanting to obey the law doesn’t make me histrionic.”
“Come on. You’re telling me you never want to break out, to have a little thrill?”
“Not an illegal one, no.”
“Oh my God, you are such a goody-goody…”
“J,” Ruby said, “tell her I’m right.”
Janine studied her fork in the sunlight for a moment, then set it down on the tablecloth and spoke.
“I found a body on the Merritt Parkway.”
The heater had switched off while Ruby and Susan were bickering, and in the new silence sparkling water effervesced in the glass. A chill fell across the table.
“A body? Like, a person body?” Ruby said.
“A person body, yes.”
“On the Parkway?”
“On the Parkway.” Janine took a sip of wine. “I was on my way to Marty’s. I’d gotten a latte on my way out of the city and I had to go to the bathroom, so I just pulled onto the grass. It was about the same time of day as it is now, and the light was starting to fade in the trees. The leaves had all fallen. I was shivering and I kept looking back at the car because I left it running.” Her index finger and thumb polished her wine glass’s stem. She could see a flaw deep in the glass when she turned it toward the light. “It was still running two hours later when I left.”
“You aren’t supposed to stop on the Parkway,” Ruby said.
“Jesus, Ruby…” Susan began, but Janine kept talking.
“There was this oak tree and I thought about stopping right there where I could still see the car but then I kept walking. The trees opened up into a little clearing when I got past the edge. I just brushed the leaves aside…” She set the glass down and gestured with her hand as if sweeping leaves from the linen. “I had this napkin from the car, a Starbucks napkin, and I left it there when I was done. The police found it and were taking it as evidence. I had to tell them, no, it was mine. The one policeman said that made sense, he looked more like a Dunkin Donuts man.”
“Who?” Ruby said.
Susan was the one who answered. “The body.”
“I was in a hurry to get back to the car, but this branch grabbed my sweater. It pulled.” Janine held out her arm. Deep in the tight cashmere weave a flaw was visible where a loose loop of yarn had been snipped.
“That’s the same sweater you were wearing?” Ruby raised an eyebrow.
“Well, I didn’t get body on it, did I?” A pause. “I got turned around and before I could get loose I saw it lying in the leaves under the tree. I never even had time to wonder if it was a mannequin or a doll or anything. I just knew it was a body. I saw a foot. A dead foot. He was wearing only one shoe and his nails were yellow and they curled over the tips of his toes.” Another pause. “They never found the other shoe.”
A waiter appeared behind Janine.
“How are we doing, girls? Would anyone care to see the dessert menu?”
“Just the check,” Janine said. She idled her fork through the remains of the fruit plate, pierced a watery green chunk of melon and nibbled at it.
“Don’t stop now. What did it look like?” Ruby’s voice lowered as she spoke, half-whispering the last.
“He had a hole in his temple, here, and there was flecked dried blood around it like he’d cut himself shaving. He was all swelled against his suit jacket. They had to cut him out of it. His face was swollen too. His hair was the only thing that looked normal. He’d used product.” Her eyes focused on distance, Janine smiled a little wry smile.
“Did you run?”
“No,” Susan answered, “you didn’t, did you?”
“I stood there for, oh, I don’t know how long.”
“Didn’t you call the police?” Ruby asked.
“My phone was in the car. I went back and called but first I just stood there and looked at him. I remember a squirrel running through the leaves. A plane flew over. Through the trees, I could see a van go past and I remember wondering if vans were allowed on the Parkway. And then wondering why I was thinking about vans on the Parkway when I’d just found a body.”
“You weren’t scared?”
“I guess I wasn’t. I knew that once I called they would come and I would talk and tell it and then have to drive to Marty’s.”
“You wanted to keep it to yourself for a while,” Susan said. “Like the credit card.”
“Jesus,” Ruby said. “Here we go again. We’re on a new topic of conversation, Susan.”
“Ambra Onorato,” Susan said to Janine.
“What?”
“The name on the card. It was like I had a piece of her and she didn’t even know it. She was mine. Ambra Onorato.” She laughed. “What kind of a name is that?”
“Italian,” Janine said.
“It changes you, doesn’t it,” Susan said, “looking behind the curtain and seeing how meaningless it all is.”
“Sure,” Janine said.
“Think about that man, begging for his life, stumbling around with one shoe, the whoosh of cars on the Parkway in the distance, and the slow footsteps of a man with a gun walking through the leaves…”
“The police said it was a dump job,” Janine said.
“A what?” Ruby asked.
“Dump job. He was killed somewhere else, and they dumped him by the Merritt.”
“But you see my point,” Susan continued, “while we sit at this table, stuffing ourselves with cheese and fruit, someone somewhere is begging for his life. Someone else is aiming a gun. Ambra’s card was ringing up registers while she cooked dinner or plucked her eyebrows or took a shower.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Susan,” Ruby said, “it’s not like we’re in college anymore.”
“So?”
“So things matter now. You can’t just do what you want.”
“Says who?”
“Says police, says me, says everybody.”
“Ambra didn’t even lose the money. The companies pay.”
“It’s wrong. Am I the only one who sees this? It’s wrong.”
“Janine,” Susan said, “you understand. We’re swaddled like babies in laws and morals and advertising agencies and millions of people comforting us with the lie that everything is just fine. The whole fabric of fucking society is just a veil over what’s real. If the truth is that people get left for dead next to the Merritt Parkway, then what do the rules matter? You take what you can take. Being a good little girl…” Ruby flushed red, “…might make you a few friends, but it doesn’t get you anywhere. Me, I’d rather be bad than naïve.”
The pitch of Susan’s voice had begun to rise, the pace of her diction to quicken.
“Janine,” she said, “I’m not surprised to hear about the body. I could see it in your eyes. Here’s someone, I said to myself, here’s someone who’s been around the block. She knows things. She’s seen behind the curtain and she…”
“I made it up,” Janine said.
“What?”
“I made it up. I never found a body.”
Once again, silence overtook the table. The check arrived.
“I knew it,” Ruby said.
“I never even manage to find the right exit off the Parkway, let alone a body. I guess I’m too naïve.”
Susan flushed. Ruby picked up the check.
“I’ll take care of this,” she said, “unless you want to put it on Ambo Onoroso’s card, you know, for kicks.”
Susan stood, tightening her pashmina around her shoulders.
“Don’t worry about it, honey,” Ruby said, “we’ve all made our mistakes.”
“Good to meet you,” Janine said. Susan nodded.
“Ruby,” she said, and stalked toward the parking lot. Ruby waited a moment, then lowered her voice and leaned in toward Janine.
“Oh. My. God. What was that?”
Janine shrugged.
“That will teach me to try to be friends with someone from Westfield.”
Janine stood.
“Rue, I’ve got to run. You sure you don’t mind picking up the tab?” Janine motioned toward her purse, and Ruby waved her off.
“Go. Don’t worry about it.”
“Thanks.”
“Thank you. I don’t know how you did it, but that whole dead body thing was a stroke of genius. You reeled her in like a fish.”
“Just doing my part.” Janine smiled.
“Bye J!”
“Bye!”
“Give my love to Marty!”
“Will do. I’m sure he sends you his.”
The sky was darkening and more clouds were beginning to scud low and fast across the darkness as Janine walked toward the parking lot. The cold came on quickly, but her legs felt strong beneath her, and she could feel her skirt against her goose-pimpled flesh as she moved. She’d broken things off with Marty, not two weeks after they’d browsed for rings together and talked about life. She hadn’t really told him why, and he hadn’t taken it well. She’d never told him about finding the body either. She’d just arrived late and cold, and left early.
She felt for her keys in her purse, and her car horn sounded twice across the empty lot. As she’d listened to Ruby and Susan bicker, she’d tasted her food very carefully. The gagging earthy stench that had seemed to fill her every pore that evening in the woods off the Parkway still hung in her nostrils, and all the fruit she’d eaten had a tang like blood.
She had wild daydreams now, nightmarish ones where the body rose marionette-like from the ground and walked after her; dreams where she lay hidden in the leaves and received his body falling, the wet meat of his brains and blood arriving just before he did; dreams where she pulled the trigger; dreams where the cold kiss of the gun’s mouth pressed against her own forehead. They didn’t feel particularly real, these dreams, she knew they were dreams, but she still walked through things as though she were very far away. Nothing could touch her. It wasn’t quite happiness, this feeling, but it made happiness feel like a children’s toy. Her breath formed before her and vanished into the winter breeze that bit at her ears, and life felt as meaningless and cold and sharp as the leaves had been around her ankles when she’d reached up into the branches to free her sweater.
“We looked all over the cabana,” Ruby said, “but the maid had just come in to clean, and I knew she hadn’t been able to resist the temptation. I called the front desk and ratted her out, I called Amex to cancel, I was freaking out. You remember?”
Ruby turned to Janine, who swirled the wine in her glass and took a sip. She turned back to Susan.
“That is the reason to go with Amex. J found the card in my purse like ten minutes later and they let me keep the same one and everything.”
The sunlight was coming in on a slant. 3:30, and the day was already thinking about turning in. A horizon-cloud rimmed with gold like a china plate slipped in front of the sun, and the air began to turn.
“I found a credit card once in a parking lot in Short Hills,” Susan said. “It was an American Express gold card.”
“When?” Ruby asked.
“Oh, five years ago, maybe.”
“What did you do?”
“Told Terrence that dinner was on me.”
“Very funny. Seriously, what do you do when you find a card like that? Call American Express?”
“I just kept it.”
“Excuse me?”
“I kept the card.”
The heat lamp roared quietly over the table, and the cloud continued on its way. Sunlight glanced over the table, the wine throbbing red in the bottle.
“You know,” Ruby said, “you’re right. I’m sure the card was already cancelled. There’s no sense in running around looking for someone who dropped it God knows when.”
“The card wasn’t cancelled.”
“Oh.” Ruby leaned back in her chair, then, in an oddly birdlike way, cocked her head. “Wait, how did you…”
“I used it.” Susan turned to Janine as she spoke, holding her gaze as though, what?, daring her to judge, asking her to commiserate, prompting her to laugh. The silence lingered. Janine looked away. Beyond her car, the trees crowding the parking lot looked almost human in their winter skeletons, their limbs bent and glittering under a shag of ice. The wind skidded a plastic bag across the lot, but the trees remained rigorously still.
“I bought lipstick,” Susan went on, “and cigarettes and a bottle of $200 bourbon for Terrence. And I went on a little spree for myself.”
She shrugged her pashmina onto the chair-back behind her, revealing the clean drape of her skirt and a white blouse. She inclined to the right, exposing the tanned deep cup of her clavicle and, as the shirt gapped, the silk white of her bra strap. She smiled.
“La Perla,” she said.
Ruby’s laugh tinkled across the table like broken glass.
“Janine,” she said, “don’t listen to her. She’s a kidder.”
Janine showed no sign of listening.
“Except I’m not kidding.”
“Right. You’re wearing the same bra you bought five years ago.”
“I said I went on a spree. It’s not like I only bought one.”
“Still, sounds like its time for a few new bras, honey.”
“Some of us are still the same size we were five years ago.”
Janine reached across the flushed silence and speared a grape on the leftmost tine of her fork. She bit it in two, examined it. A pale seed quivered in the grape’s flesh, held in place by a single gelatinous thread.
“Oh honey,” Ruby said, “I see now. If you’d needed money, you just should have asked someone. You didn’t have to steal to keep up.”
“No,” Susan laughed, “money was not a problem.”
“So what was your problem?”
“No problem.”
“I’d say being a criminal is a problem.”
“Nothing happened,” Susan shrugged. “No checking ID, no police, no lightning striking me down from above.”
“That doesn’t mean it isn’t wrong.”
“Being wrong is what made it right.” Susan shook her head a little, turned to Janine once again, and shrugged. What are we going to do with a prude like Ruby? Janine poured herself a little more wine. Ruby joined Susan in turning to Janine.
“Well J, how does it feel to be made an accomplice?”
Susan rolled her eyes.
“I see you rolling your eyes at me. And don’t worry, I’m not going to call the police or anything, but I don’t appreciate being made an accomplice either.”
“I’m just telling you a story.”
“Is it a true story?”
“Yes, but that doesn’t make you an accomplice. Stop being so histrionic.”
“Wanting to obey the law doesn’t make me histrionic.”
“Come on. You’re telling me you never want to break out, to have a little thrill?”
“Not an illegal one, no.”
“Oh my God, you are such a goody-goody…”
“J,” Ruby said, “tell her I’m right.”
Janine studied her fork in the sunlight for a moment, then set it down on the tablecloth and spoke.
“I found a body on the Merritt Parkway.”
The heater had switched off while Ruby and Susan were bickering, and in the new silence sparkling water effervesced in the glass. A chill fell across the table.
“A body? Like, a person body?” Ruby said.
“A person body, yes.”
“On the Parkway?”
“On the Parkway.” Janine took a sip of wine. “I was on my way to Marty’s. I’d gotten a latte on my way out of the city and I had to go to the bathroom, so I just pulled onto the grass. It was about the same time of day as it is now, and the light was starting to fade in the trees. The leaves had all fallen. I was shivering and I kept looking back at the car because I left it running.” Her index finger and thumb polished her wine glass’s stem. She could see a flaw deep in the glass when she turned it toward the light. “It was still running two hours later when I left.”
“You aren’t supposed to stop on the Parkway,” Ruby said.
“Jesus, Ruby…” Susan began, but Janine kept talking.
“There was this oak tree and I thought about stopping right there where I could still see the car but then I kept walking. The trees opened up into a little clearing when I got past the edge. I just brushed the leaves aside…” She set the glass down and gestured with her hand as if sweeping leaves from the linen. “I had this napkin from the car, a Starbucks napkin, and I left it there when I was done. The police found it and were taking it as evidence. I had to tell them, no, it was mine. The one policeman said that made sense, he looked more like a Dunkin Donuts man.”
“Who?” Ruby said.
Susan was the one who answered. “The body.”
“I was in a hurry to get back to the car, but this branch grabbed my sweater. It pulled.” Janine held out her arm. Deep in the tight cashmere weave a flaw was visible where a loose loop of yarn had been snipped.
“That’s the same sweater you were wearing?” Ruby raised an eyebrow.
“Well, I didn’t get body on it, did I?” A pause. “I got turned around and before I could get loose I saw it lying in the leaves under the tree. I never even had time to wonder if it was a mannequin or a doll or anything. I just knew it was a body. I saw a foot. A dead foot. He was wearing only one shoe and his nails were yellow and they curled over the tips of his toes.” Another pause. “They never found the other shoe.”
A waiter appeared behind Janine.
“How are we doing, girls? Would anyone care to see the dessert menu?”
“Just the check,” Janine said. She idled her fork through the remains of the fruit plate, pierced a watery green chunk of melon and nibbled at it.
“Don’t stop now. What did it look like?” Ruby’s voice lowered as she spoke, half-whispering the last.
“He had a hole in his temple, here, and there was flecked dried blood around it like he’d cut himself shaving. He was all swelled against his suit jacket. They had to cut him out of it. His face was swollen too. His hair was the only thing that looked normal. He’d used product.” Her eyes focused on distance, Janine smiled a little wry smile.
“Did you run?”
“No,” Susan answered, “you didn’t, did you?”
“I stood there for, oh, I don’t know how long.”
“Didn’t you call the police?” Ruby asked.
“My phone was in the car. I went back and called but first I just stood there and looked at him. I remember a squirrel running through the leaves. A plane flew over. Through the trees, I could see a van go past and I remember wondering if vans were allowed on the Parkway. And then wondering why I was thinking about vans on the Parkway when I’d just found a body.”
“You weren’t scared?”
“I guess I wasn’t. I knew that once I called they would come and I would talk and tell it and then have to drive to Marty’s.”
“You wanted to keep it to yourself for a while,” Susan said. “Like the credit card.”
“Jesus,” Ruby said. “Here we go again. We’re on a new topic of conversation, Susan.”
“Ambra Onorato,” Susan said to Janine.
“What?”
“The name on the card. It was like I had a piece of her and she didn’t even know it. She was mine. Ambra Onorato.” She laughed. “What kind of a name is that?”
“Italian,” Janine said.
“It changes you, doesn’t it,” Susan said, “looking behind the curtain and seeing how meaningless it all is.”
“Sure,” Janine said.
“Think about that man, begging for his life, stumbling around with one shoe, the whoosh of cars on the Parkway in the distance, and the slow footsteps of a man with a gun walking through the leaves…”
“The police said it was a dump job,” Janine said.
“A what?” Ruby asked.
“Dump job. He was killed somewhere else, and they dumped him by the Merritt.”
“But you see my point,” Susan continued, “while we sit at this table, stuffing ourselves with cheese and fruit, someone somewhere is begging for his life. Someone else is aiming a gun. Ambra’s card was ringing up registers while she cooked dinner or plucked her eyebrows or took a shower.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Susan,” Ruby said, “it’s not like we’re in college anymore.”
“So?”
“So things matter now. You can’t just do what you want.”
“Says who?”
“Says police, says me, says everybody.”
“Ambra didn’t even lose the money. The companies pay.”
“It’s wrong. Am I the only one who sees this? It’s wrong.”
“Janine,” Susan said, “you understand. We’re swaddled like babies in laws and morals and advertising agencies and millions of people comforting us with the lie that everything is just fine. The whole fabric of fucking society is just a veil over what’s real. If the truth is that people get left for dead next to the Merritt Parkway, then what do the rules matter? You take what you can take. Being a good little girl…” Ruby flushed red, “…might make you a few friends, but it doesn’t get you anywhere. Me, I’d rather be bad than naïve.”
The pitch of Susan’s voice had begun to rise, the pace of her diction to quicken.
“Janine,” she said, “I’m not surprised to hear about the body. I could see it in your eyes. Here’s someone, I said to myself, here’s someone who’s been around the block. She knows things. She’s seen behind the curtain and she…”
“I made it up,” Janine said.
“What?”
“I made it up. I never found a body.”
Once again, silence overtook the table. The check arrived.
“I knew it,” Ruby said.
“I never even manage to find the right exit off the Parkway, let alone a body. I guess I’m too naïve.”
Susan flushed. Ruby picked up the check.
“I’ll take care of this,” she said, “unless you want to put it on Ambo Onoroso’s card, you know, for kicks.”
Susan stood, tightening her pashmina around her shoulders.
“Don’t worry about it, honey,” Ruby said, “we’ve all made our mistakes.”
“Good to meet you,” Janine said. Susan nodded.
“Ruby,” she said, and stalked toward the parking lot. Ruby waited a moment, then lowered her voice and leaned in toward Janine.
“Oh. My. God. What was that?”
Janine shrugged.
“That will teach me to try to be friends with someone from Westfield.”
Janine stood.
“Rue, I’ve got to run. You sure you don’t mind picking up the tab?” Janine motioned toward her purse, and Ruby waved her off.
“Go. Don’t worry about it.”
“Thanks.”
“Thank you. I don’t know how you did it, but that whole dead body thing was a stroke of genius. You reeled her in like a fish.”
“Just doing my part.” Janine smiled.
“Bye J!”
“Bye!”
“Give my love to Marty!”
“Will do. I’m sure he sends you his.”
The sky was darkening and more clouds were beginning to scud low and fast across the darkness as Janine walked toward the parking lot. The cold came on quickly, but her legs felt strong beneath her, and she could feel her skirt against her goose-pimpled flesh as she moved. She’d broken things off with Marty, not two weeks after they’d browsed for rings together and talked about life. She hadn’t really told him why, and he hadn’t taken it well. She’d never told him about finding the body either. She’d just arrived late and cold, and left early.
She felt for her keys in her purse, and her car horn sounded twice across the empty lot. As she’d listened to Ruby and Susan bicker, she’d tasted her food very carefully. The gagging earthy stench that had seemed to fill her every pore that evening in the woods off the Parkway still hung in her nostrils, and all the fruit she’d eaten had a tang like blood.
She had wild daydreams now, nightmarish ones where the body rose marionette-like from the ground and walked after her; dreams where she lay hidden in the leaves and received his body falling, the wet meat of his brains and blood arriving just before he did; dreams where she pulled the trigger; dreams where the cold kiss of the gun’s mouth pressed against her own forehead. They didn’t feel particularly real, these dreams, she knew they were dreams, but she still walked through things as though she were very far away. Nothing could touch her. It wasn’t quite happiness, this feeling, but it made happiness feel like a children’s toy. Her breath formed before her and vanished into the winter breeze that bit at her ears, and life felt as meaningless and cold and sharp as the leaves had been around her ankles when she’d reached up into the branches to free her sweater.