The Assignment
Another few days passed in which nothing appeared to change.
Forrest continued to leave the house just after sunrise, disappearing for hours.
I made the rounds of the club, the Caboose, my chaise lounge down by the lakefront, the library.
I had a tennis lesson almost every day now, not that anyone but Jonathan took note.
At night I no longer wrote my crazy, dangerous stories of sex and romance.
Lying in bed now, I replayed moments on the tennis court, remembering what Jonathan had told me about my backhand grip, my footwork, my serve, my follow-through.
If I lifted up the mattress and took out my journal at all now, it was only to make lists of pointers Jonathan had given me that day.
I went over these in my head in the moments before sleep.
Regina continued to leave us all her daily lists of typewritten instructions—for Forrest, a reminder to pick up some medication and check the filters on the air conditioner, or that her pearls needed to be restrung and would he please bring them to the jeweler for her.
There was a reminder that Jilly had another birthday party to attend and needed a gift.
Her most recent birthday offering hadn’t gone over well, so Regina had increased the budget to twenty-five dollars.
I’ve been noticing you seem to have taken off a little weight, Frances, she wrote to me. Bravo. She followed this with a reminder that Hayward needed to clean out his earwax.
Other than the exchange of these notes, Regina and I had barely communicated since our discussion in her room.
The same was true of Forrest and me; it was almost as if he knew I’d overheard his conversation with Brenda, or simply that he knew I knew what he was doing and couldn’t look me in the eye.
I missed him, of course. Even as I was busy trying to hate him. I was never very successful at accomplishing that.
It was August now, and the goldenrod was coming out along the side of the road on our bike rides to the club—an uncomfortable reminder for me that there were fewer days of summer ahead of me at Wonderland than behind. The number was down to thirty-two.
On this particular Saturday—with rain pounding down and no end in sight—there would be no tennis.
Hayward and Jilly were happy watching a movie.
Forrest was off on his bike. (He said he didn’t mind riding in the rain, though Regina and I both knew that where he was going, he probably wouldn’t get that wet.)
I was just about to start reading my most recent library book—It, by my favorite author, naturally. My longest Stephen King novel yet. Just as I settled in on the couch, Regina came over with a cup of hot chocolate for me. Amazingly, she’d made this herself.
“I’ve got it all worked out,” she said. “Our plan. Come up to my room and we’ll go over everything.”
When we got there, she closed the door and settled herself on the bed, gesturing for me to take the easy chair closest to it.
Regina took a sip from her tea. I did the same with my hot chocolate.
“I’ve worked out the details,” she told me. “I needed to think everything through.”
I sat there, waiting. She’d tell me when she was ready.
“You’re an odd girl, Frances,” she said. “But I like you. I see who you are and what you’re capable of.”
For most of my life, my goal had been trying to seem more like other people. But hearing what almost seemed like praise from Regina filled me with unfamiliar pride.
She took another sip of her tea before she continued.
“As unlikely as the prospect may be that Forrest will actually follow through with some crazy plan of leaving me—considering that Forrest never follows through with anything—I have decided it’s a good idea to assemble a body of evidence.
As an insurance policy, you might say. Naturally Forrest must not know we’re onto him. ”
Even now, feeling as disappointed in him as I was, it felt uncomfortable to be colluding with a woman as unlikable as Regina on a plan that could bring down a man I had adored.
“You were right about one thing,” she told me. “My husband seems more preoccupied with this little redhead than he’s been with his previous summer flings. I find it hard to attribute his obsession to the woman’s attractions, which seem negligible at best. But you know men. Or maybe you don’t.
“You’ve probably observed how different things have felt around here lately,” she said.
I had, of course. All my life, I’d been that quiet, boring girl nobody paid attention to, standing off on the sidelines, watching, while other people lived their big, interesting lives.
I noticed everything. They might not pay attention to me, but I paid attention to them alright.
Up until now, I’d kept my thoughts to myself.
I picked up on conversations. I noticed small things nobody else did.
For example: That Prudence sometimes stashed an extra twenty-dollar bill in her pocket before she went home at night.
That a charm bracelet belonging to Jilly’s friend Cookie had somehow migrated to Jilly’s jewelry box.
That one of the mothers at the country club liked to call her opponent’s shot “out” in a doubles game, when it wasn’t really.
I’d spotted the copy of Penthouse magazine in Hayward’s room, tucked behind his untouched guitar.
I had studied the issue myself, in fact.
“Forrest never has breakfast with me anymore,” I told her.
I didn’t mention the other part, which still tugged at my heart: The small bunches of tiny flowers I’d find by my spot at the counter.
The little wordless notes, featuring nothing more than a rainbow, or two lips formed into a kiss, followed by the letter X.
And the one I’d found only the day before.
That one, most of all, had gotten to me. A stone in the shape of a heart.
“People underestimate you, Frances,” Regina said. “They think you’re this mousy little bookworm. That’s why you’ll be such a great detective.”
I figured this was supposed to be a compliment.
“Look at you,” she said. “Nobody would guess what’s going on in that mind of yours. You don’t even have breasts.”
Regina had taken a little time to think this through, she told me. Now we were ready, finally, to proceed.
My task: to gather information about what was going on between Forrest and Brenda. Some aspects of the story had revealed themselves already. What we lacked was hard evidence.
We needed concrete details concerning Forrest’s assignations with Brenda—when they occurred, and where. I didn’t know what the word assignation meant, but I could guess.
Regina reached for her knitting needles, but not to knit. She stabbed the air with one of them, waving the other like a conductor. She seemed more animated than I’d ever seen.
We could guess what happened between the two of them, she told me, but for our case to be airtight, we needed irrefutable proof. This meant a time log of their trysts. Photographs. Tapes, possibly.
I didn’t need to ask Regina how she imagined we’d acquire these. I knew she would tell me.
The first question was, Where did these meetings take place?
Once we established that, I’d need to stake out the spot.
More than one of these, no doubt. Once I had a successful sighting, I’d get close enough to see and hear what was going on—which would be easier if the lovers didn’t meet behind closed doors. As they probably wouldn’t.
“One thing about my husband,” she told me, “he loves fucking outdoors.”
There was that word again. Coming from Regina, it had a particularly shocking effect.
There was the cottage Brenda and Kyle were renting, of course, but even if he weren’t the nature-loving type, Regina doubted they’d have sex there.
It would have been way too obvious if Forrest had parked his Porsche out front.
He could swim over there, but Kyle wasn’t working, which meant he’d be around a lot.
“This leaves us with the question: Where do they go?” she said.
On days Forrest rode his bike—purportedly to train for the big Labor Day event—he probably rode to some secret location they’d found. Then there were all those swimming days when he left the house in nothing but his trunks—gone for hours, supposedly to circumnavigate the lake.
Though houses lined parts of the lakeshore, there were wild spots too, where a pair of lovers might arrange a rendezvous.
I could picture Brenda standing on the edge of Lake Catherine in one of those spots, waiting for Forrest—wearing a large hat to protect her precious complexion, and that heavy foundation makeup, with a blanket laid out on the ground.
Forrest would emerge like a seal out of the water, his arms enfolding her. She’d get wet, but she wouldn’t care.
Seals didn’t live in lakes, of course. He’d be more like a water snake.
It was also possible they’d find a day when the Red Sox were playing and Kyle was off at some sports bar, watching the game.
Then they might meet up at her rental cottage after all.
Emerging from the water onto the Barnetts’ small, muddy patch of lakefront, so unlike the vast green lawn of Wonderland.
Forrest would make his way up the path to her back door.
Brenda would be wearing a negligee with nothing on underneath.
I put fresh sheets on the bed, she’d say. She’d lead the way. As much as Forrest loved doing it on the grass, he’d make an exception then.
“If something like that happens,” Regina told me, “you’ll need to look in the windows. A stepladder may be necessary.”