Archives:
June 17-June 23, 2007
June 17, 2007
I get in the elevator on the way out of my grandmother's apartment building this afternoon, and come face to face with a girl with short blond hair. I give her a nod as I come in, then press the button for the ground floor.
She turns her head and looks at me. It's a little awkward when she doesn't turn away, so I look at her again. It's only then that it occurs to me she looks familiar.
“You don't remember me, do you?” she asks.
“I'm sorry—”
“I'm Allie. I guess you were too busy checking out Val's rack the other night to remember me.”
“Oh, man, I'm sorry,” I say, putting a hand on my head. “It's the glasses—I didn't recognize you without them.”
“They're called contacts.”
I exhale, turning back to the elevator doors as they open. “Well, I'm sorry again,” I say, not looking back to her. “I'll see you.”
“You know, Val said you were kind of cute.”
I stop and look back, as Allie walks past me out into the lobby. She keeps walking toward the exit. I glance around me at the seniors sitting around, chatting with one another, and hurry past them, following her outside.
“So what were you doing here?” I ask when we're outside.
“Huh, look who's interested in talking now.”
“I was just curious why you're here.”
“My grandfather lives here,” she says, still not stopping, walking just a step ahead of me. “You?”
“My grandmother.”
“Look, I don't mean to crush any dreams here, but I don't see anything happening with you and Valerie.”
“Excuse me?”
“I think she likes you a little bit, but she's never going to leave Adam. And if you keep trying on this, Adam's going to make sure he keeps you two apart.”
“Hold on, a second,” I say as Allie stops by an old Camry. “I think you got the wrong idea about what was going on the other night.”
“Val called me and said she was going to out for ice cream with you, but Adam wasn't going to let her go alone. And since the two of them were going, she wanted me to come to make it a double date.”
“Are you serious?”
Allie rolls her eyes.
“Look, I have a girlfriend. I'm not interested in Valerie like that.”
“You're telling me you're not attracted to her at all.”
I shrug. “All right, she's beautiful. But I'm just looking to get to know her better.” I look away for a second. This is going no where, but it occurs to me Allie herself might be a source of information. I'm reluctant to be open with her, but then, she was pretty open with me just now. For all I know, she'll keep going.
“My dad's defending her dad in the murder trial,” I say. “The truth is, my dad asked me to find out more about Valerie, and find out everything she knows about her mother's death. That's my stake in this”
“Huh.” She nods. “I guess that adds up.”
“So do you know anything?”
“You're not very good at pumping people for information, are you?”
I smile, scratching the back of my head. “I'm a rookie.”
“Well, I'm sorry I can't help you,” she says, sticking a key in her car door, then pulling it open. “All I know is Adam's been more protective than usual lately. It might be because he's worried about keeping Val safe after what happened.”
I wait for her to say more, but she stops. “Or?”
“It's an interesting question isn't it?” she asks, pulling a pair of sunglasses from the neck of her v-neck top. “Good luck, Preston . I hope you find what you're looking for.”June 18, 2007
Matt joins me here in his living room, setting a bowl of microwave popcorn down on the couch between us. “So what if she knew you were into Val? Doesn't seem like it was the best kept secret.”
“I don't care that she knows.” I pause, shifting in my seat. “I mean, I care a little. But the thing is, Allie was suggesting that there was something more to be known.”
“Like what?”
I grab a handful of popcorn. “I don't know. But it's just the way she said it—that Adam might just be trying to keep her safe, or that there might be something else. If I didn't know better I'd say—” I trail off.
“You'd say what?”
“Well, that Adam was the murderer.”
“Are you so sure he's not?”
I hesitate, but go on soon enough. “Yeah. He's a dick, but he doesn't come across as a killer.”
“And Valerie's old man does?”
I reach for more popcorn.
Matt scratches his chest, and goes on “So Allie—you think she was holding out on you?”
I finish chewing before I go on, “I don't think she likes Adam, or the position that she had to be in because he was so overprotective the other night. So it could be that that's all it was.”
Matt shakes his head. “This is a big mess you're working yourself into here, Presto.” He flips a piece of popcorn in the air and catches it in his mouth. “I hope you know what you're doing.”June 19, 2007
“How are you doing, Dad?” I ask, peeking my head through his office door. It's a little past 5, and I was about to head home. It struck me just then that I had yet to have even seen my father today.
“Not bad, Preston ,” Dad says, though all appearances seem to run in the opposite direction. He has his head in his hand, and his hair is a little askew, I assume from scratching his head a number of times before now. His tie hangs loosely around his neck, the top button of his shirt undone, as torn out pages from a legal pad surround him on his desk.
“Long day?”
“Ah, I'm just trying to piece all of this together, and figure out what I'm missing.” He sits up a little straighter. “You can come take a look if you want.”
I do opt to come in, and stand at my father's side. Out on the desk, I spy not only the curled yellow pages of notes, but also photographs of Darryl's house, and different people involved in the case.
“What we've got is a murder happening sometime after 3 p.m. when a neighbor,” he points to one picture, “saw Cheryl Goodman come back to the house after she went grocery shopping. The groceries were all put away, and she had gotten upstairs, so we're assuming she had at least 15 minutes, maybe half an hour before the murder.
“We've got Charlie,” he points again to a bald man with stubble on his face. “He's the gardener, and was at the house the morning of the murder. As far as we know, he was the last one to talk to Cheryl. He told the police he didn't see anything, but I'll be talking to him myself in a few days.
“Then we have Darryl. He didn't have any appointments, so he left for home early. He said he started go to Golden Burger to grab a milkshake, then thought better of it, because he'd be eating dinner in an hour. So he turned back around, losing about fifteen minutes all told, came into the house at about 5:20 p.m.. He found the body and called the police. There were no signs of forced entry into the house. His hunting rifle, used in the murder, was removed from its cabinet without any sign of breaking. Either he mistakenly left it unlocked, or someone found the key he had hidden, then returned it to where it belonged after removing the gun.
“We have other neighbors,” Dad fans his hand out generally over a collection of photographs, “some character witnesses for Darryl there.”
“And we have Valerie and Adam, who arrived home at the scene about a half hour after Darryl.”
I nod, not really sure what insight I can add. “It doesn't seem so bad,” I venture. “I mean, the prosecution has to prove he was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt right?”
“Reasonable doubt can be a subjective term.” Dad drops his hand down on the notes. “If he just hadn't gone for the stupid milkshake—or if he'd gone ahead and bought the milkshake, we wouldn't have 15 minutes of time he's not accountable for. The receptionist sees him leave a few minutes before 5, though, and then he doesn't call the police until 5:25 .” Dad rubs his forehead again. “If any of the neighbors had seen when he arrived home, it would be a different story. They'd know he wouldn't have had time to commit a murder.”
He stops, looking up at me again, before he goes on. “That's where the problem comes in. Can the prosecution, literally, prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt? Probably not. But if the jurors connect the dots, and start thinking to themselves that Darryl must have killed his wife, that's going to be enough. There won't be a doubt in their minds, reasonable or otherwise, and that's all that matters when they hand down the verdict.”June 20, 2007
“And that one is the most expensive piece in the store,” Valerie says, pointing out a gold brooch on display behind the glass counter, embedded with a ruby, emerald, sapphire, and a half dozen other gems I can't name. “It's called the rainbow brooch, because of all of the different colors.”
“Wow,” I say nodding, peering at it from the opposite side of the counter. “You ever take it out and try it on?”
She laughs. “I don't think so.”
“Well why not? I mean, it's like if I was working in a sporting goods store, I know I couldn't resist picking up the nicest bat and giving it a few swings in the air.”
“ Crystal 's got cameras all over the store, though. The only way anything comes out of this case if a customer is serious about buying it.”
“Well who's to say I'm not a serious customer?”
“You're not serious, period.”
“Touche.”
She smiles, looking back down. “I don't know if I'd even wear a brooch anyway. If I was going to pick something out, it would probably be that one.” She points down at a necklace with a white and yellow gold chain, and a sliver of a moon hanging from it.
“It's pretty,” I say. “Does it mean anything?”
She shrugs. “Nothing I know of. I just think it's pretty.”
“Is that what a Harvard education gets you?”
“I'm not studying jewelry.”
“Or the moon, apparently.”
She laughs again, her cheeks rising, and her nose scrunching up ever so slightly.
She keeps her eyes down on the jewelry. “I guess I never could have landed this job on my own merits.” The smile slips from her face. “Good thing my parents had connections.”
I nod slowly. “Yeah.”
“I just—I just hate thinking about them. I mean my father—he's alone there.” She makes eye contact with me for a second, then goes on in a mumble, “There's nothing I can do.”
I put a hand on hers over the glass, kind of tentatively, then think better of it altogether, pulling my hand back to my edge of the counter. “Well my dad's logging extra hours on this one. He's doing everything he can, and I think he's going to win the trial.”
I really don't know what the odds of Dad winning the trial are, and after yesterday, I have my doubts that even he thinks that he'll win. It seemed like the right thing to say, though, so I let it go at that.
Valerie nods, and looks back up at me. “Thanks, Preston .”June 21, 2007
“Man, it's hard to believe you're leaving again,” I say setting the last suitcase down in Matt's trunk. He's leaving for camp today, and won't be back until the week of Ray's wedding. “Seems like we hardly got to hang out at all.”
“Well, with you being the busy man in the office these days, is it any wonder?” Matt asks, flashing me a grin. “We can only pack so many hours in front of the TV each day when we don't start until 5 in the afternoon.”
“It's a valid point.”
Matt slams the trunk closed. “Well, I'd better get going. I'm supposed to swing by Julie's, and she's going to follow me to camp.”
“And so it begins.”
Matt nods, sort of making a face.
“So hey, tell her I said hi. And you guys have a good time out there, all right?”
“Oh, we'll have our fun. But you feel free to visit too. It was a good time when you came last year.”
“Yeah, I'll see if I can work that in.”
Matt sifts through his keys in his hands, picking out the car key. “So hey, Preston , before I go I just wanted to say—” he trails off, looking out into the road for a second before he turns back to me. “Be careful with this crew you're seeing now—Valerie, and all them.”
I smile. “All right.”
“I'm serious. There's something fishy about them.” He jingles his keys at his side. “I don't know, maybe that's just in my head. Anyway, just keep your eyes open around them.”
“Got it.”
“OK. I'll see you in a while then,” he says, reaching out his hand.
I shake it. “Take it easy, man.”June 22, 2007
“Is it bigger than a breadbox?” Valerie asks.
“No,” I reply, a few questions into our fifth or sixth game of twenty questions in the store. Valerie has asked that same question at each turn, despite or maybe because I made fun of her the first time for asking the most stereotypical question in the game.
I came to the store today, in part, as part of my father's suggestion that I get closer to Valerie, and in part because I genuinely wanted to spend time with her. A new dimension to it, though, is a sort of loneliness that stabbed at me when Matt left yesterday. It's odd because, relatively speaking, we didn't even hang out that much for the first few weeks of the summer. With him and Chang both gone, and Teri hours away, I find myself just looking for someone to talk to.
“Hmm,” Valerie says, tapping her fingers against her lips.
A bell rings behind me. I turn to see Adam coming into the store.
“Hey honey,” Valerie says. I turn as she sits up straighter on her stool.
“Hey sugar,” he says to Valerie, but keeps his eyes on me as he makes his way toward us from the front. “ Preston , how are you doing?”
“I'm good, thanks.”
He turns to Valerie at last. “So, when you off work tonight, babe?”
“Here until close again,” she says, tilting her eyebrows almost apologetically.
“Why don't you just shut down the store,” he says, reaching across the counter and grabbing her hand roughly, as he smiles. “And you, me and Presto go bowling or something.”
“Sounds nice,” Valerie says, smiling back at him, a little more forced, I think. “You know I can't leave.”
“Yeah, I know.” He lets go of her hand, and turns his head to me suddenly. “Hey Preston , you play poker?”
I swallow. “Yeah, I play here and there.”
“You should join us. My boys and I, we're having a game Wednesday night. You should swing by.”
“Sounds fun.”
“Good,” Adam says curtly, turning back to Valerie. “So what do you say babe, can you take a little break?”
“I'm the only one here, Adam.”
“I don't see any customers neither.”
“There is one,” Valerie says with a smile turning to me.
I'd say it's about a 50-50 whether Valerie wants me to stay or is hinting for me to leave. Either way, I'm positive Adam wants me out. “Actually,” I say, “I do have to be on my way. Good talking to you, Valerie. And Adam, I'll see you on Wednesday?”
“Yeah, take care of yourself until then,” Adam says, leaning against the counter.
I nod to each of them, and make my way out.
June 23, 2007
“Wow, that's awesome,” I say over the phone. “I can't imagine seeing something I designed up on a billboard like that. That's really cool.”
“Thanks,” Teri says. “I mean, it's not that big of a deal, but it's just like a step in the right direction, you know?”
“Absolutely.”
“So what's new in Shermantown?” Teri asks.
She asks that question a lot, and a lot of the time, I want to admit that there's not a lot going on here, and nothing's really new. You would think that a murder trial would give you more to talk about, and maybe it will when the actual trial gets going, but for now the best I have to talk about is Valerie and Adam.
I leave out some of the details, of course. I haven't mentioned a word about Allie, or how she described our night out.
“I'm going to be playing poker with Adam—Valerie's boyfriend next week.”
“Huh—well that should be fun. I guess you're missing the male interaction now that your boys are gone.”
“Yeah. I'm not sure how much I like Adam, though. And who knows what his friends will be like.”
“Well,” Teri says, “if you don't like them, all the better. You won't have to feel bad about taking their money.”
I chuckle. “I guess that's right.”
“Hold on,” Teri says suddenly. After a second, I hear a door open. “Joe, what are you doing?”
There is some mumbling.
“You're supposed to be in bed. And were you just listening to my conversation?” The phone moves and I can hear that she's coming back to me. “ Preston , I'm going to have to call you back.”
“That's fine.” I can't help smiling. “I'll talk to you later.”