The Husband's Secret(68)

            Rachel laughed out loud and clasped her hands together as if in prayer. She’d forgotten that too. How could she have forgotten it? Janie used to pretend to be a reporter at the oddest times. She’d come into the kitchen, pick up a carrot and say, “Tell me, Mrs. Rachel Crowley, how was your day today? Ordinary? Extraordinary?” And then she’d hold the carrot in front of Rachel, and Rachel would lean in close to the carrot and say, “Ordinary.”

            Of course she said “ordinary.” Her days were always so very ordinary.

            “Good evening, I’m Janie Crowley reporting live from Turramurra, where I’m interviewing a reclusive young man by the name of Connor Whitby.”

            Rachel caught her breath. She turned her head and the word “Ed” caught in the back of her throat. Ed. Come. You must see this. It had been years since she’d done that.

            Janie spoke into the pencil again. “If you could just scoot a little closer, Mr. Whitby, so my viewers can see you.”

            “Janie.”

            “Connor.” Janie imitated his tone.

            A broad-chested, dark-haired boy wearing a yellow-and-blue-striped rugby shirt and shorts slid over on the bed until he was sitting next to Janie. He glanced at the camera and looked away again, uncomfortably, as if he could see Janie’s mother twenty-eight years in the future, watching them.

            Connor had the body of a man and the face of a boy. Rachel could see a smattering of pimples across his forehead. He had that starved, frightened, sullen look you saw on so many teenage boys. It was as if they needed to both punch a wall and be cuddled. The Connor of thirty years ago didn’t inhabit his body in the comfortable way he did now. He didn’t know what to do with his limbs. He flung his legs out in front of him and tapped one open palm softly against his closed fist.

            Rachel could hear herself breathing raggedy gasps. She wanted to lunge into the television and drag Janie away. What was she doing there? She must be in Connor’s bedroom. She was not allowed to be on her own in a boy’s bedroom. Ed would have a fit.

            Janie Crowley, young lady, you come back home this minute.

            “Why do you need me actually in it?” asked Connor, his eyes returning to the camera. “Can’t I just sit off camera?”

            “You can’t have your interview subject off camera,” said Janie. “I might need this tape for when I apply for a job as a reporter on 60 Minutes.” She smiled at Connor, and he smiled back: an involuntary, smitten smile.

            “Smitten” was the right word. The boy was smitten with her daughter. “We were just good friends,” he’d told the police. “She wasn’t my girlfriend.” “But I know all her friends,” Rachel told the police. “I know all their mothers.” She could see the polite restraint on their faces.

            “So Connor, tell me about yourself.” Janie held out the pencil.

            “What do you want to know?”

            “Well, for example, do you have a girlfriend?”

            “I don’t know,” said Connor. He looked keenly at Janie and suddenly seemed more grown-up. He leaned forward and spoke into the pencil. “Do I have a girlfriend?”

            “That would depend.” Janie twisted her ponytail around her finger. “What do you have to offer? What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? I mean, you need to sell yourself a bit, don’t you know?”

            She sounded silly now, strident and whiny, even. Rachel winced. Oh, Janie, darling, stop it! Speak nicely. You can’t talk to him like that. It was only in the movies that teenagers flirted with beautiful sensuality. In real life it was excruciating to watch them flailing about.