Clydene knew three things about physical abuse. The first thing Clyde knew about physical abuse is that the victim blames herself for the abuse. She does not blame the abuser. Secondly, she feels helpless and fearful. And lastly, the victim will tell the abuser anything he wants to hear, do anything he wants her to do, even believe anything he wants her to believe, if she thinks it will spare her further torment. Clyde also knew one more thing, that it didn’t take a pattern of abuse to produce these effects. A single attack could do it. How she knew these things is a subject she didn’t like to talk about, or even to think about. Suffice it to say that Clyde had personal experience in this area, personal memories, and she had spent long hours with professional counselors and psychologists overcoming the symptoms of it. But Clyde still hated to talk about it. She hated to think about it. And Ted agreed. There weren’t many things Clyde and Ted couldn’t talk about in their marriage. This was one of them.
But that evening, as Clyde went through the files she had stolen, these memories kicked in. It was a like Thomas Magnum’s little voice, telling her that something was wrong. At least that was how Mira always described it. Clyde’s little voice encouraged her to keep looking. Then it told her what had happened to Hashim Osama, not in gory detail, but concretely enough that she didn’t want to believe it. She told her little voice that they were missing something and that if they kept looking, they would find another explanation. But the further they looked, the more adamantly her little voice insisted that it was right. Finally, she stopped arguing and just sat, staring at her computer screen, stupefied.
She asked herself why this was so important to her. Why did she even care? She didn’t even know this guy. Did it really matter what happened to him? But Mira cared, and Mira was Clyde’s best friend. And that was also why—Clyde told herself—she didn’t want to admit what she thought had happened to Hashim, because she didn’t think Mira would be able to handle it. But in the corner of her mind, her thoughts told her that was bull. Mira would handle it just fine. Rather, Clydene Jackson was the woman too sensitive to handle this particular tragedy. She shuddered.
Clyde’s memories of the afternoon came flooding back over her. She remembered the photos Jane had shown her, the stories she had told, how close the two families were, how their lives clicked together when Hashim’s family had moved in, like pieces of a snap-together, plastic model, despite all their differences, stories of family outings and of dinners over each others’ homes and of friendly get-togethers. And Clyde marveled at the sympathy she felt for these people she had never actually met.
Then, from somewhere deep inside, their attacker became as hers had been on her own fateful night, the horror that had carried her to the edge of death itself, had brought out the best and the worst in love, had made her question her very right to be happy. An evil man had robbed her of a piece of her own soul. Now, Baedes was the attacker, who in her mind had so clearly perpetrated the same torture on another human being. A hidden fury burned her heart, and this sweet, rational woman suddenly envisioned Baedes tied naked in a dungeon. She wanted to lash out at him. No, that wasn’t good enough. She wanted to point a .45 between his eyes, grin an evil grin, and blow his brains out. What she felt was not mere anger; her mind had been taken over by furious rage, unsullied by even the tiniest speck of restraint.
Hold on, she reminded herself, I don’t actually know that Baedes personally did this. Or even that it really happened. There was certainly enough corruption among his lackeys. The whole department reeked of violence, when it suited them. But did it matter whether he personally was involved? Beady-fucking-eyes knew about it. His files prove that. He was a systematic abuser, bullying everyone he could control, on a personal campaign of terror. Mira once commented that he didn’t know how to take honest criticism. She was probably right.
Clyde hurt, physically hurt. She started reading the file again, and with every word, it built up her worst memories, terror upon terror, horror upon horror. Her imagination ran rampant, and she forcibly shoved it back into its box. And then it exploded. It was neither gradual nor subtle nor quiet. No tear came to her eye. There was no time for that. She cried, wretched, wailed.
And she finally understood what Mira had been talking about. Clydene wanted to stop the world and get off. It was no fun anymore.
Mira rarely drank to excess. But tonight was an exception to the rule. This first day of the work week, she had seen over a dozen clients, and all of them had personal emergencies of one sort or another that they expected Mira to solve magically. Toward the end of the day, she had to bite her tongue to keep from yelling at people.
On top of that, her stomach was still reeling from the weekend. Every moment her mind couldn’t focus on work, it started to dwell on the people she loved and how she had hurt them. She knew that Baedes had been after her, had been fishing for information he could use against her, had been threatening anyone associated with her, had been bending the rules, “making deals” to sell her out in exchange for leniency, had been digging up every suspect she had ever helped, had probably even gotten to a few of them. What’s more, she could not talk to anyone about this, because she had promised Ted, because if anyone found out he had told her, he could lose his bar card. He had twisted the rules for her, just as Baedes had twisted them against her, and she had to do the right thing; she had to keep Ted’s secret, for now. But the secret weighed heavily on her heart, and her mind kept going to all the people who were now at risk, because of her.
That was a lie. There was only one person her mind kept going to, the man who started Baedes’s fishing expedition of terror, who right now represented all the people in her life, and represented all her love and fear, vision and uncertainty, conviction and doubt. The doubt had been building steadily for over a month. And while she couldn’t explain it in words, there was a definite feeling, a new feeling she felt about herself, not a pleasant feeling, but a wretched melancholy, a depression about to turn into self-loathing, kept at bay only by Mira’s singular ability, ironically, to see the glass half full.
You can’t always control who you fall in love with. Mira thought. She didn’t talk about it, but she had strong feelings for this man who—unknown to him—had made her fall in love with him. She was in love with him, because he made her feel happy. He was her giver of pleasure and of pain. She loved how his eyes made her feel when he smiled. She loved how he smelled. She loved how rugged he looked in his five o’clock shadow. She loved how he loved life. She loved how he penetrated her soul, divining by some hidden sorcery exactly what she thought and felt, like no one else could. Sometimes, not even Clydene knew her as well as Ike did. Clydene, one of the only people in the world who truly understood her. And Mira loved the greatness within him, the way he inspired others. She wanted him on her team. More importantly, she wanted him in her life.
But she didn’t know whether he wanted her in his, at least not in the same way she wanted him in hers. And she couldn’t figure out whether it could work, or even if it was the right thing to do. When it came to Ike, Mira was a ship without a compass.
She knew that others saw the way she felt, even though she tried not to talk about it. But she tried not to hide it from Clydene, because they shared everything with each other. Still, she had not been able to talk with her best friend about how deep her depression went and how deeply she had it buried. It was just as well. How could she hope to communicate these feelings to Clyde when she couldn’t describe them to herself? Too many feelings were swirling around in Mira’s stomach, and at the time she couldn’t make sense of any of them.
Part of her didn’t want to make sense of them. She just wanted to lose herself in a movie, the movie she always ran to when she felt lonely and tired and aching inside. So she curled up on the couch in her rose-covered jammies, with a bottle of California Zinfandel, and she popped Moonstruck into the DVD player. Before the film was over, she had put away more than half the bottle.
Meanwhile, Mira watched Loretta Castorini fall in love with her own man she couldn’t be with. Mira could see it in Loretta’s eyes, right there in Cammareri’s Bakery. Mira reached her hand to her neck and fingered the necklace Ike had bought for her those months ago. The necklace was tacky; it was cheap; it was costume jewelry. But she had seen it one day at the mall, and she said she liked it, and so he bought it for her, just like that. She was sure, at the time, he didn’t have the money. She smiled at the memory, a passionate, painful smile, and a single tear dripped from her left eye. She dropped the necklace, letting it hang again from her neck, and wiped the tear away with her fingers.
But it was too late to stop crying. Piece by piece, moment by moment, the memories Mira had been avoiding began to intrude into her psyche, forming a complete story. After she had been released from jail, the march on Town Hall went on as planned. Ike joined them in picketing and chanting, which had made Mira feel elated. Now, curled up on her couch, she longed to remember that feeling, but the memory was too distant. Events piled up to form a mountain that separated her from that feeling. But she still knew that feeling had been real. It had been a perfect feeling, now decimated. And it was all her fault.
If Mira had not urged Ike to march with her, if she had not told him it would release his frustration, if she had not blindly leaped into the fray dragging Ike along with her, if he had not been the straw that broke Baedes’s camel’s back… Ike had indeed let his frustrations out. As the protesters marched, signs held high, Ike’s seemed to be held just a little higher than the rest. His chants had a passion behind them that infected both demonstrator and onlooker alike. And when they asked, “How, Chief?!” Ike raised his hand in a mock native greeting. Yes, it was corny, and it was racially insensitive. But it made Mira laugh.
The press gawked on, and there was even a blogger or two with a digital camcorder. Mira and Michael excitedly answered questions of anyone who asked. Clydene and Ted stood by, not taking active part, as previously agreed. In case Mira encountered trouble, Ted and Clyde would be her people on the outside. But there would be no trouble. This event was coming off more perfect than she could have imagined.
Then the devil himself arrived. Mira wasn’t sure what Baedes was doing at Town Hall. It didn’t matter. He strode past the demonstrators, who glared at him from beyond a chorus of “How, Chief?!” And when Baedes paused to glare back, Ike shoved his mock-native hand in his face.
“How! Chief?!” he shouted.
It took only a few seconds for the chief to react. He grabbed Ike’s outstretched arm and yanked it around, forcing it behind Ike’s back. The chief pulled out his handcuffs and proceeded to arrest Ike. Mire knew he didn’t need an actual charge, because it didn’t matter. He could make something up if he needed to.
Demonstrators began bugging out like cockroaches. Some ran. Others set down their signs and nonchalantly blended in with the surrounding crowd. But Baedes had no intention of arresting anyone other than Ike, not the other demonstrators, not the sign-litterers, not even Mira.
Oh that he would have arrested her! For a moment, she wondered whether she should charge to Ike’s rescue, so that they could go to jail together. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it. It wasn’t the same as being arrested for peaceful action. In Mira’s mind, those incidents were easy to deal with, even though they angered her, because she knew she was in the right. But interfering with the law, even when the law wrenched her heart as it was doing at that moment… Mira gawked in horror, until it was over.
She hadn’t noticed that not everyone had deserted her. Mira had true friend in those who had remained with her and would for all time. Michael placed his hand on her shoulder. He rubbed her back gently. She felt him, but she didn’t feel like noticing. Without a word, she stooped down and began picking up the signs and tracts that were littering the ground. Ted was already tidying up the area.
Clydene put her arm around Mira and whispered in her ear, “Leave those, honey. Ted and Michael can take care of that.”
She took the objects from Mira’s hands, grabbed Mira by the shoulders, and lifted her to standing. Somehow, Clyde fended off the crowd and the press, as she led Mira to her blue Camry. Leave it to Clyde to come through in a crisis, even if she would be feeling the full weight of it later. Once safely in the passenger’s seat, Mira brought her knees to her chest and held them there. Her face contorted, and wails and tears flowed from her heart. Clydene touched her shoulder, but Mira refused to be consoled. It had been her fault, all her fault.
Since then, Baedes had been adding a new element to his interrogations, a fishing trip for damaging information about Mira and her legal counsel. Ted told her this was happening. He knew about it not only from his own clients but also from the grapevine. Naturally, some of the people Baedes badgered were both innocent and ignorant, and Ted and Mira were getting a bad rap in criminal defense circles. But other sharks were trolling for chum to feed the monster, to get their guiltier clients a better rap. Ted warned Mira not to tell anyone else about this, not even Clydene, for now, because this information was gained partially through privilege, and Ted’s telling it to Mira could possibly be breaking privilege, and Mira knew how dangerous a minefield that could be. Besides, telling wouldn’t do any good, and once told, the story cannot be untold. Reluctantly, Mira agreed to keep it a secret.
But the secret weighed heavily on her. There was a time she would have been happy to hear that Baedes was so upset because of the fight she was fighting against him. But that was before she had faced in her mind the unsuspecting innocents that would end up in the middle. She wasn’t sure she could come to terms with that, and she wished she could talk it out with Clyde, to get herself centered. Intellectually, she knew she was doing the right thing, but such knowledge was little comfort to her.
Mira had a feeling Ike was one of those who had been compromised, maybe the first. She didn’t know what he had told Baedes, or what he was telling Baedes, and she didn’t want to get him into any deeper trouble. So she avoided him. But he still managed to call her once every couple of weeks.
Wracked with guilt, Loretta found a way to get past her problems and to live happily ever after. Mira, on the other hand, was drunk from misery and wine.
Even as memories and thoughts and feelings poked at her psyche, all she could truly remember was that she was guilty and inconsolable. Mira herself had pushed Baedes over the edge and sent him on a manhunt for her, mowing down anyone who got in his way. Mira had been prepared for him to come after her. She had been prepared to make sacrifices for the cause. She clearly had not prepared herself to watch while those sacrifices were systematically exacted from the lives of the innocent and the beloved.
She curled up on her couch in her flowered, cotton pajamas, pulling her knees to her chest, and wept.
Monday came and went and turned into Tuesday morning, and all this time, Clydene’s conscience had been struggling with her newfound knowledge. Her first thought was that she was stupid for not paying better attention in the first place. For over a month, Baedes had been searching for her (though he didn’t know it), blaming Mira, and playing dirty. And all the time, Clyde had not known anything about it, and she could have.
Her second thought was that she had to do something. Her third, fourth, and fifth thoughts were that there was nothing she could do. She couldn’t go to Mira, because Mira was already teetering on the edge of giving up. This new news would push her over the edge. She couldn’t go to Ted, because she loved her husband, and if Ted found out she had committed a felony… She feared even to let her mind go there, even to think that Ted could allow her to go on breaking the law, no matter the result, no matter what was just or fair. Ted was too good for that. He played too close to the rules, was part of the system, believed in the system. Ted would turn her in—she was certain of it—or would insist that she turn herself in. This fear was the reason why she had not been keeping better tabs on Baedes, the fear of being caught. It was why she had been so secretive about her discoveries. It was why she did not trust Michael, because Michael was more Ted’s friend than hers. But even if she could have told any of her friends, none of her friends could do anything to help.
She felt powerless. She couldn’t even help the Hashim family, because they didn’t know her or trust her, and they were still not talking, to anyone. She wasn’t a stalker, anyhow. There was only one person who might be able to help them, and that was Jane. Clyde had a good feeling about Jane, and more importantly, Mira expressed good feelings about her. Even so, Clyde didn’t know if she could trust Jane with her secret. Not that it mattered, because Clyde really didn’t know anything, not when it came to Hashim. Yes, she had a list of strange questions and answers, and a more horrifying list of suspicions, but no real evidence. Likely, the only testimony of whatever happened in that police station was locked inside Hashim’s own tormented mind.
So on one level, it felt strange to Clyde that she was meeting her new friend Jane for lunch. Even as they sat down in the green and brown booth at the hole-in-the-wall diner, where Clyde normally wouldn’t be caught dead, even as they browsed the menu, ordered breakfast fare similar to that whose aroma permeated the air they sniffed, even as they sipped their watered-down coffee, even as Clydene prepared to broach the subject, she didn’t really know what she was going to say. That probably meant she was going to say something stupid.
Oh well, here goes nothing, Clyde thought.
“I can’t tell you how I know this,” Clyde began. “In fact, I don’t really know anything. And even if I did know it, I couldn’t admit that I knew it or tell you how I knew it. Can you keep a secret?”
Already Clyde knew she was screwing this up.
“Yes,” Jane said straight-faced. “I can keep a secret, if it’s important.”
Clyde spoke softly. “What I’m saying is, if anybody asks, you and I just had lunch and chatted. In fact, we didn’t even have lunch. Because if anyone finds out that I know what I know, people will get hurt.”
“Are you with the CIA?” Jane said, just above a whisper.
Clyde was confused for a second. Then she laughed. “No. Nothing like that… Actually…” A couple had been seated in the table next to them, and Clyde started to think it was a little too cramped for this discussion. “I have to use the ladies room. Want to come with?”
Safe from the eyes and ears of the crowd, Clyde started telling Jane about her suspicions, about abuse of process, about taking advantage of a visitor on American soil, about threats, about torture, about officials extracting information in the color of law.
Jane was incredulous. She couldn’t believe such a thing could happen, not here, not in the twenty-first century. So Clyde piece by piece revealed to her the entire secret. She didn’t mean to, but once she started talking, it all came out, and fast. Clyde had revealed the entire story before she knew what she was doing, cracking into the government computer network, discovering Baedes’s secret files, his quest for information, his mission of terror, his notes on his interrogation of Hashim. She suddenly feared Jane might not keep the secret. Then she feared Jane might blame her. Or that Jane might think Clydene was delusional. Pick whichever fear you wish: Clyde feared for her life.
But Jane didn’t seem angry. Nor did she seem suspicious. She didn’t seem anything. The two women quietly strode back to the table. Their coffee was still sitting there, undisturbed. They sat. Jane sipped.
“What do you want me to do?” Jane asked.
“I thought you might be able to talk to Hashim or his wife. Find out whether I’m out of my mind.”
“You’re not.” Jane choked on the words, her eyes squinted, and Clyde could see wetness in them.
“I’m so sorry,” Clyde said. She touched Jane’s hand. Then she reached into her purse for a tissue and handed it across the table.
Jane explained that she had talked to Fatima going out to the market. But Fatima had been distant, and when Jane probed her on the subject, she brought Fatima to the verge of tears. Jane could not repeat what they talked about, because she was sworn to secrecy. But with the details that Clydene provided, she said, everything started clicking into place.
“Are you mad?” Clyde asked.
“Livid,” Jane said.
Clyde didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry,” she eked out.
“Thanks.” Jane buried her nose in the tissue.
“You won’t tell anyone about me,” Clyde said, more a question than a statement.
Jane shook her head. “No.”
“Can you do anything for Hashim?”
“I can ask them—“ Jane choked on her words again. She breathed. “I can try to get them to talk to a lawyer.”
A new voice interrupted their conversation.
“Clyde?”
Clyde turned to look at the newcomer. She was an average-looking woman, in her thirties, medium hair, brown eyes.
The woman rephrased. “Are you Clydene Hobbes?”
Clyde stared back at her, doing her best to look concerned, upset, confused— anything except what she really felt, which was scared. She didn’t know why she should feel scared. She wasn’t doing anything wrong. There wasn’t any reason she shouldn’t befriend Jane, or that Jane shouldn’t befriend her.
The woman continued. “I’m Julie. We went to school together at Springfield High?”
Clyde immediately remembered, but her mind was too full to think through all the facts right now. Clyde shook her head. Clyde lied. “Sorry. I never lived in Springfield.”
Mira pulled herself up each stair, with each step contemplating the words she planned to speak to Ike. She secretly wished that he was not home, so that she wouldn’t have to face him. But as she approached his apartment door, she heard a man speaking indistinct words over soundtrack music playing through a television speaker inside, and she knew Ike would come to the door if she knocked. Maybe she should have buzzed him from the front instead of sneaking into Ike’s building as the pizza guy left. But she didn’t want to talk to Ike unless it was face-to-face, or maybe even at all.
Mira stared at the gold, plastic numbering on the flat, wooden door. Apartment 4B. For a moment, she stood listening to some fictional nighttime drama being played out within. It couldn’t hold a candle to the real-life drama playing out in the hallway, within her own heart. She stood staring at the door, then the door jamb, then the little table Ike had set in the hallway. It held some minor knickknacks, a wooden bowl of candy, a matching wooden cup, hand-painted, an empty, blue bottle once filled with white wine, markers of his personality, his taste, his vision. She breathed in the scent of fallen leaves mingled with the bad cologne and old cigarette smoke of the people who lived across the hall.
She wondered whether she should have stopped at home first, to change and freshen up. It had been another long day at the office. Even though she looked sharp in a dark business suit, she felt hot and sweaty and dirty.
This was silly. She was making excuses. She knew what she had come to do. She was committed. In half-consciousness and half-daze, Mira reached out her hand, held her breath, and pounded several times on the door with her knuckles.
Then she waited. It seemed an interminable wait, and Mira thought she heard some voices superimposed over those of the characters on the TV.
Oh no! Mira thought. What if he has company over?
But no one answered her knock. Maybe it was Mira’s good fortune that no one heard her. She had decided to slip away and forget the whole thing, when the door swung open. Mira stood face-to-face with a woman, dirty blonde, long hair, buxom but fit, a little taller than Mira herself, wearing a large T-shirt and little else.
“Can I help you?” the woman asked.
For a moment Mira was stunned. She wondered whether she had accidentally knocked at the wrong door.
“I— I’m sorry,” Mira stammered. “I think I must have the wrong apartment.”
“Who is it?” Ike said from inside.
Suddenly, Mira felt as if she were in a B-rated horror flick, as if she were one of those stupid females in skimpy clothing who had just ventured into the monster-infested dark tunnel after having been sternly warned against it by the delusional paranoiac.
“I don’t know yet,” the woman answered Ike.
Ike peeked around the corner. “Oh. Hi, Mira. What can I do for you? Come in. We were just making Piña Coladas. You want one?”
“Uh… No… Actually, uh—“
“Sorry. Where are my manners?” Ike said. “Soph, this is Mira Jayson. Mira, this is my girlfriend, Sophie Marcum.”
The breath left Mira’s body.
“Mira!” Sophie said. “I’ve heard so much about you. I understand you’ve been a real friend to Ike.”
“Uh, I guess so.” Mira could see that the woman did not appreciate her friendship with Ike as much as she was trying to make it seem.
“So,” Ike said, “are you coming in? Or should we bring the party outside?”
“I’m, uh—“ She shifted gears. “I’m sorry.” She tried to speak cheerfully. “I didn’t know you were seeing anyone.”
“Well, it all happened kind of fast.”
“Oh, I see. You know what? It can wait. I need to go, anyhow.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Sophie said with a tinge of sardonicism.
As the outside door wheezed to a close, Mira stood for a moment on the outside step and breathed deeply.
Clyde lay on the couch in her living room, in the dark. Ted was working late, which was good, because she didn’t feel like talking to him or to anybody. There was nothing on TV, and she didn’t feel like cooking. She didn’t even feel like playing her guitar. She just sat in the dark and gazed at the vague shadows on the ceiling.
Her cell phone rang. She didn’t feel like talking to anyone right now. But it might be Ted, and it might be important. She picked up the phone and peered into the small display. It was from a phone number she didn’t know. Curiosity got the better of her, and she flipped open the phone and answered. It was Jane.
“I thought you might like to know,” she said, “I talked to Fatima tonight.”
It was Clyde’s good fortune that she had taken the phone call. She needed some good news to lift her spirits.
Jane continued. “I couldn’t convince them to talk to a lawyer.”
Clyde was mystified. “But what about the criminal charges? Why would he go with a public defender? Is he going to plead guilty? He didn’t do anything.”
“The charges have been dropped.”
“Huh?” Clyde shook her head. “What do you mean, ‘The charges have been dropped’? Just like that?” Clyde asked.
“Yes, the charges have been dropped. Just like that.”
“Oh.” Clydene didn’t know how to process that information. “Well, that’s good news, I guess,” she finally said.
“I’m not sure,” Jane said. “Fatima says they’re moving back to Pakistan, this week. They’ve already made arrangements.”
Clyde said nothing.
“… just like that.” Jane finished her story.
“I’m so sorry. I feel responsible.”
“Why? It’s not your fault.”
“Yes, but I—“
“Clydene, you did nothing wrong. We just have to make sure this doesn’t happen again, to anyone else.”
Clydene nodded her head, not thinking that Jane couldn’t see her over the telephone.
“At least, that’s what I think,” Jane said.
Clyde had to get her bearings. “Uh, yeah. I don’t know how, though.”
“Let’s have lunch again,” Jane suggested.
And so they made lunch plans for the next week, though Clyde didn’t see what the point was. The two were just about to say their goodbyes when Clyde’s doorbell rang. She hurriedly hung up and answered the door, wondering what new cruelty this day could deliver.
Mira stood outside in the chilly, night air. Clyde couldn’t really see her in the dark. Without a word, Mira stepped inside and cried bitter tears on Clyde’s shoulder. So Clyde wrapped arms around her and consoled her.
