Bleeding Hearts(3)

—there was a distinct possibility that she was getting her period.

She leaned over the front seat and told the driver, “Superior court.”

The driver gave her a strange look, but took gamely off.

Bennis sat back and sighed. She told herself she could go over to Hannah’s tomorrow and just ask who it was. That was what would make the most sense.

Then she closed her eyes and let the cab take her across town, lulling her even in the Friday-night traffic, making her drift off to sleep in spite of the weekend lights. When they pulled up in front of the superior court building, she was nearly snoring.

“Hey, lady,” the cabdriver said.

Bennis came to and reached for her wallet.

Back on Cavanaugh Street, a gust of wind coming up the stairs as Gregor Demarkian opened the front door to let himself in, tugged at the tape Bennis had used to fasten her note to her brother Christopher to her door, ripped the note away, and sent the note and the tape both spiraling down the dark center of the stairwell.





2


HANNAH KREKORIAN HAD NEVER been a pretty woman. In fact, she had never been pretty at all, even as a child. That might not have mattered if she had had flair, like Sheila, who was really plain but knew how to make herself up. It might not have mattered if she’d had brains or talent or humor or anything else that could provide an aura of fascination. Instead, Hannah had been a stocky, plain child with a good heart who had become a stocky, plain woman with a good heart. There were advantages in that. Her husband had married her for what he called her “generosity.” Her friends stuck by her for what they called her “helpfulness.” She had been elected to the parish council four times because of her universal reputation as a “good Christian woman.” The problem was, Hannah Krekorian did not want to be a good Christian woman. She wanted to be what Lida Arkmanian had been, when they were all growing up together on Cavanaugh Street. She wanted to be the most beautiful girl in the class, the natural prom queen, the undisputed choice to represent the spirit of spring at the annual citywide Armenian Festival. Most of all, Hannah wanted to be the kind of woman men just couldn’t help being attracted to.

It was so cold on this night, the tips of Hannah’s fingers were turning blue. The joints of her fingers felt too stiff to handle the key to her own front door. The bones in her face seemed made of stone. She was being silly and she knew it. She wasn’t a girl anymore. She was fifty-eight years old, and so was Lida. Sheila Kashinian wasn’t much younger. All of them had grandchildren. None of them was going to be chosen to represent spring this year or any year in the future. What good was it going to do her, wishing her life had been different when she was seventeen?

The key turned in the front-door lock. Hannah pushed against the door and couldn’t make it budge.

“Here,” Paul Hazzard said, coming up behind her. “Let me do that. It’s so cold out here, I can barely breathe.”

Actually, it was Hannah who could barely breathe. She’d been having trouble with breathing ever since Paul Hazzard had come up to talk to her, back at the coffee break during her meeting for the Friends of the Matterson Settlement House. The Matterson Settlement House was one of Hannah’s “charities.” She kept on with it—as she kept on with the Friends of the Philadelphia Public Library and the Friends of the Calliman Museum of Art and the Friends of the Boswell Theater of Modern Dance and all the rest of it—because the meetings gave her someplace to go and the other members of the organization gave her somebody to talk to. Hannah had people she could talk to on Cavanaugh Street, of course. She did a lot of real and well-appreciated work for the church and the Holy Trinity Armenian Christian School. She was surrounded by people she had known forever. It just wasn’t enough.

Wasn’t enough for what? she wondered now, watching Paul get the door open and stand back to let her pass. She’d been so restless lately, so dissatisfied, and she didn’t know why. She stepped into the foyer of her brownstone and turned on the foyer light. The doorway to Melina Kashinian’s apartment was dark. Melina Kashinian was eighty-nine and probably already in bed. That’s what’s really wrong with this place, Hannah thought. Everybody goes to bed too early. And they all go to bed alone.

What?

Paul Hazzard had shut the door behind himself and was now waiting expectantly. Hannah could feel herself blushing hot and hard, as ashamed of herself as if she’d just dropped her drawers in public. It was no good at all to tell herself that Paul Hazzard couldn’t read her mind. Where had a thought like that come from?

“There’s an elevator over here,” she told Paul Hazzard, “just for me. My apartment starts on the third floor.”