|
 Wanton's
Web
Chapter One:
Spiderwoman
A
blurry twilight was softening the concrete angles along Lake
Street as Cassidy McCabe and her friend Maggie Benton
stepped outside the air- conditioned movie theater into a
breezy July night.
You're
in such a spin about what you and Zach are up to--could've
been watching Godzilla Meets the Three Stooges for all you
know.
Pausing on the sidewalk, Maggie cocked her curly head. "I
assume, of course, we're going to eat ourselves into
oblivion with double dip cones at Edie's."
Cassidy nodded and the two women started strolling toward
the ice cream shop a block east of the Lake Theater in the
heart of demalled downtown Oak Park. Maggie wants ice cream.
I want my guardian angel to come sit on my shoulder and
promise I'm not about to make another hideous mistake.
"Thirty-three's too many," Maggie complained in the husky
voice Cassidy envied. "I wouldn't want just chocolate,
strawberry, and vanilla, you understand. But ten'd be nice.
I could cope with ten. When I look at thirty-three, I get
immobilized. I just stand and stare at the luscious array in
front of me and then I go into overload."
About
the same height as Cassidy's five-two, Maggie had a delicate
face surrounded by soft, curly hair and an air of
contentment that flowed from her like a magnetic field.
They
passed a Starbucks, tables on the sidewalk, a half-dozen
coffee drinkers lounging in the balmy air. A caffeine junkie
herself, Cassidy felt tugged at by the rich aroma. The night
swirled with soft lights, clumps of straggling pedestrians,
sounds of clogged traffic creeping along Lake Street. Do it
now. Otherwise you'll act like a tongue-tied idiot tonight,
then have to make up some stupid excuse to get together next
week. So just say it. Get the old voice box in gear and
start pumping out words. Cassidy ran the tip of her tongue
across her upper lip. "Zach and I are planning to get
married." "What?" Maggie stopped short and grabbed Cassidy's
arm. Her clear gray eyes stared in surprise. "Well, what do
you know!"
Cassidy swallowed and said in a small voice, "Does that mean
you think it's a bad idea?"
Maggie
threw her arms around Cassidy in a quick hug. "Don't even
try to fish for reassurance," she said, resuming her
ice-cream bound journey.
"You're not getting one word out of me--either pro or
con--about what I think you should do. Just give me all the
juicy details right now."
"We're
thinking of early September." Her mouth went dry. Never
imagined I'd get so nervous just talking about it. "We're
going to keep it tiny, but I would like you to stand up with
me." Holding onto her short magenta dress to keep the skirt
from blowing, she added, "You're the first person I've
told."
"Me, a
bridesmaid. I never expected to get so traditional. But
you're my closest straight friend, so for you I'll do it."
A
rusted-out Ford prowled past, the radio amping out rap, a
young black driver in dreadlocks jumping to the beat. When
their ears had recovered, Maggie asked, "So, how sure are
you?"
"Umm."
Cassidy pressed her palm to her cheek. "Eighty percent?"
"What's that uncertain twenty?"
"Oh,
my history of getting left. Zach's history of leaving. You
know that can't be just coincidence." She paused. "Plus the
fact that the first husband I picked turned out to be such a
jerk."
Maggie
let out a light, puffy laugh. "Can't you for once stop
acting like a therapist and just enjoy being in love and
planning a wedding?"
"The
other thing is, my life's been going too well. It makes me
nervous. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop."
"Well,
of course it will sometime. But why not enjoy the good stuff
till it does?"
Same
thing you always tell clients.
Yeah,
but letting your guard down is too much like tempting the
fates.
Cassidy breathed in air smelling of trees, car exhaust, and
a hint of pizza from the shop across the street. Letting her
worries go in a long sigh, she felt the tension in her neck
and shoulders drain away. "You know, I've always wondered
why people who are living together and getting along fine
want to up and spoil it by getting married. And here I am,
doing it myself."
They
stopped for the light at Lake and Forest. "The perversity of
human nature, my girl. People can't stand for their lives to
stay in balance. They get bored and have to stir something
up."
"Well,
and it's a damned good thing they do, or we therapists'd be
out of business."
* * *
Cassidy dropped her friend off at the small brick house
Maggie shared with her partner, Susie, then drove north on
Ridgeland, east on Briar to her corner two-story. If it
seems too good to be true, it probably is. She and Zach had
been living together nine months, and their life had fallen
into an easy rhythm that allowed her to pull in her claws,
sleep more soundly at night, and sing along with Bette
Midler and Bob Seeger on the radio.
Even
the climate reflected her current state of contentment,
providing day after day of bright, mild air without the
usual stickiness that in previous summers had made her feel
like soggy Kleenex. The weather gods in my corner? Not
hardly. More likely compensating for that killer heat wave a
few years back that racked up so many bodies Chicago ran out
of places to put 'em.
She
parked her Toyota in the garage and started the ten-yard
trek along Briar toward her back gate, and past that, her
tall, box-shaped house, a yellow glow radiating from every
first floor window. Among the many things Zach's mother had
failed to teach him was the economy of turning off switches.
Although night had officially fallen, the village's white
street lights and the city's rosy aura kept darkness at bay.
Cassidy watched a flock of grade school kids rollerblading
in the street, said hi to a couple of neatly dressed teens
moseying in the direction of Austin Boulevard, the border
between her integrated suburb and an all-black section of
Chicago.
The
too-good-to-be-true part was the change in Zach. She'd
initially pegged him as a man to be stayed away from, the
kind of irresponsible, noncommittal jerk that had always
been her downfall. Even told you flat out on the first date,
intentions were strictly dishonorable. A short fling, then
bye-babe, been-nice-to-know-you. That had been his modus
operandi for nearly twenty years, but somehow, this time
out, he'd gotten sidetracked and moved in with her. Once he
got his waterbed installed in your house, turned out to be
the kind of guy who brings coffee in the morning, talks out
problems, and now, the most amazing thing, actually eager to
put a ring on your finger.
Overall, most of the rough edges had smoothed out. She'd
finally paid off the debt bequeathed to her by her ex,
Kevin, her client load was increasing, and Zach was mowing
the grass before it achieved ankle length, as she'd let it
do in previous summers. At thirty-eight, Cassidy had
navigated some pretty unpleasant shoals. Kevin's bimbo-fever
yanking you into a divorce, a bread-and-water stint in
graduate school, a two-client private practice start-up. And
then, against all better judgment, getting involved with
Zach. At the beginning, seemed you had to be either crazy or
masochistic to have anything to do with him.
She
opened the back door into her client waiting room, a space
partitioned off from her large kitchen by a free-standing
oak closet. She'd done her best to make the room inviting,
with mauve wicker chairs, airy wallpaper, a filmy
raspberry-sherbet fabric draped around the window. Despite
worn linoleum that curled at the seams and a kitchen twenty
years overdue for remodeling, she had managed by dint of
much elbow grease and little money to overcome the sense of
slumminess her old house was always in danger of slipping
into.
Before
starting toward the stairs in front, she made a quick stop
in the half-bath off the waiting room. Checking the mirror,
she pushed wayward auburn curls back from her face. The
reflection she'd been seeing for several months now was
softer and more relaxed than in the past. During the
difficult years, her narrow face had always appeared bony
and drawn. Tonight the image was rounder and fuller, the
deep-set hazel eyes, high cheek bones, and pointed chin
actually striking her as attractive. First time ever thought
I was pretty. Not sure if the difference is how I look or
how I see myself. Must be the steady diet of love and sex.
Coming
around the oak room divider, she noticed a nearly empty
bottle of Jack Daniels on the kitchen counter next to the
sink. Above it the cabinet door hung open. Nothing unusual.
Zach always has a drink or two in the evening. 'Cept he
usually manages to close the cabinet behind him.
On her
way through the track-lighted living room, she glanced out
the wide front window. The back of Zach's head was visible
above the wicker couch on the dark, enclosed porch, their
favorite place for summertime sitting.
As she
opened the oak door, the smell of bourbon hit her full
force. Don't like this. Zach looked up. Starshine, sitting
erect in the casement window next to the screen door, jumped
down, extended her front legs in a long stretch, and greeted
her with a Mwat.
He was
fine when I left.
He's
not fine now. When she'd kissed him good-bye at four, he'd
glanced up from his computer screen, given her his usual
lazy smile, and returned to whatever he was doing. She'd
gone off to visit her mother, then to meet Maggie for dinner
and a movie, with no sense of anything amiss.
She
sat beside Zach, her back teeth clamped in anger at the
alcohol fumes rolling off him. "Well," she said, keeping her
voice even, "what's up?"
The
midsummer night was soft and buttery, the air perfumed with
flowers and freshly cut grass. A light breeze jangled the
wind chimes and rustled the trees lining both sides of
Hazel.
"There's something I have to tell you." |
