Like It Never Happened (20 page)

My parents weren't expecting me, but fortunately
there was enough chicken and salad and Moroccan couscous to go around. Apparently they ate all the food groups whether I came home or not. Probably they had retired too early.

My mother was so thrilled by my homecoming that she set the table with cloth napkins and crystal water glasses, like it was someone's birthday. Dad tucked his napkin into his shirt and sawed into his chicken breast while Mom asked me routine questions about the play and school. My answers weren't very satisfying and soon we were all just listening to each other chew.

“Tell me about Charlie!” chirped Mom in desperation. “What's he up to?”

I blinked. “I have no idea.” I spoke through a mouthful of couscous.

Setting down her fork, Mom glared at me. There was no surer way to offend her than by insinuating that Charlie and I were not the greatest love story ever told. Before she could put words to her disbelief, the front door banged open and closed. Dad looked frantically from Mom to me before his eyes focused on Mary, now looming above the table. She wore a Burberry trench coat tied at the waist. She smelled like outside.

Mom pushed back her chair. “I thought you were staying with the Clines all weekend! Let me get you a plate.”

Mary's refusal was sharp as ice.

Dad squinted at his oldest daughter. “She looks upset,” he observed.

“Did you and Jeffrey have a fight? Sit down, honey.” Mom wore her “compassionate-receptive” face, which she had actually learned from a book on raising teenagers. I once found the book on her nightstand, the diagram on a dog-eared page: lift the eyebrows, flare the nostrils. Don't forget to smile.

“No.” Mary's features were tense with restraint. She got directly to the point. “Did you maybe forget to give me a package about three weeks ago?”

I bit down on my tongue so hard I tasted blood.

Mom frowned. “When gifts arrive for you, I leave them in your room. You know that.”

Mary focused on the ceiling. “Let me rephrase. Did you maybe
decline
to give me a
certain
package, about three weeks ago?”

Seeing Mom's confusion, Dad interjected. “What's this about, Mary? I'm not sure I like the tone in your voice.”

“Nadine!” Mary erupted, fists balled at her sides. “Nadine Pemberley! She sent me a package and out of the hundreds of packages I've received, you expect me to believe that
hers
got lost in the mail? Are you serious?”

Now my father looked at my mother quizzically.

Mom took a long drink of water and wiped her lips on the back of her hand. “No package arrived from Nadine,” she said calmly.

“What makes you think Nadine would send you something?” Dad crossed his arms authoritatively.

“Well, first of all, I invited her to the wedding.”

Dad looked pained.

“And second of all, she called to ask if I got the package!”

A phantom alarm wailed in my head. I had no idea how to fix this.

“I'm not sure it's appropriate to invite that gir—that woman—to your wedding,” Dad lectured.

My sister throttled an imaginary throat. I hid my face in my hands, pinkie fingers pressed against my eyelids.

“What your father means to point out,” said Mom, “is that Nadine is associated with some of your toughest times, and weddings are meant to celebrate the best of times! Why invite anyone who doesn't know you and Jeffrey as a couple?”

Mary shrieked, “The Steudle-Trapps! The Feldmans! The Popinos!” She was listing the names of our parents' friends, all of whom were apparently invited to the wedding.

“You may have forgotten,” interrupted Dad, “but the Steudle-Trapps played a large role in raising you. Don't you remember first Thursdays?”

Mary turned to me, looking for an ally. I stared very hard at a ceramic bowl in the center of the table. It was the successor to an expensive piece of pottery I had broken as a child. Mom had sobbed like the bowl was her firstborn.

“On the first Thursday of every month we had dinner with the Steudle-Trapps and during dessert you and Juliana liked to stand up on the hearth and perform popular songs for our amusement. What was the one where they held out their hands like traffic guards?”

“Amy Grant,” answered my mother.

“Nadine!” bellowed Mary. “Nadine Pemberley! We don't ever have to talk about it for as long as you live. Frankly, if she were an old boyfriend you hadn't liked, we all would have moved on a long time ago. So that's what we're doing. I don't care how you see it. I really don't. I just want my motherfucking mail.”

My father squeezed his eyes shut, like the pairing of those two words had ruptured something inside his head.

“I have it.” The confession escaped my lips.

Mary looked like she had been slapped. “Excuse me?”

“It's in my room. The letter and everything.”

Dad frowned. “Letter? I thought we were talking about a wedding gift.”

Mom's eyes were wide with absolute panic. Mary stepped closer to me. “Did you read it?” She seemed more shocked than mad.

I nodded.

“And what did it say?” demanded Mom.

Mary's anger swelled. “And you
kept
it from me?”

My eyes were leaking against my will. I could not locate the words to explain what had felt logical at the time. Nadine's letter had the power to ruin everything. No more gorgeous wedding dress, no more Jeffrey's mustache, no more Mary bursting into our house unannounced. I had kept the letter so I could keep my sister. Hadn't I?

“She was trying to hurt you!” I claimed.

Mary stared at me.

“I mean she wants—” I glanced at my trembling parents, and then I let the words spill anyway. “She wants you back!”

Mary lifted her eyebrows, intrigued in spite of herself. “That's impossible,” she said, before racing out of the room and up the stairs, crashing like a thunderstorm.

I followed Mary and was, of course, trailed by our mother. In my room I sank to my knees and unearthed the box from beneath my bed. By now it was half crushed.

“Thank you,” said Mary.

“What's in there?” demanded Mom.

Mary lifted the cardboard flaps and pawed through the contents. “Just stuff,” she said.

“What stuff?”

Pressing her lips into a coy expression, Mary clutched the box to her chest and sashayed out of the room. We followed.

“Rebecca, honey.” In Mary's doorway, Mom put a hand on my shoulder. “Did you share that letter with anybody?”

Sinking upon her old bed, Mary rolled her eyes. “Yeah, Mom, she typed it up and sent a copy to the Steudle-Trapps.”

Mom looked horror-stricken. Temporarily, Mary and I were on the same team, just willing our mother to leave. No matter how much she wanted to play a part in the drama, it was, for the first time ever, between sisters. Finally Mom got the point. Turning on her heel, she stomped back downstairs.

Feeling light-headed and desperate, I watched Mary shrug off her trench coat and pull the box into her lap. I lingered in the doorway while she read the letter straight through. A smile tugged at her lips, gradually becoming a grin.

“I'm sorry,” I said, the moment she finished. I repeated myself like a cuckoo clock. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.”

“Look.” Mary let her head fall back against the wall, laughing feebly. “I'm not ashamed of this, if that's what you were thinking.”

“I wasn't—”

Mary cut me off. “You should never have read it. No matter how you justified hiding it, the package was for me. Not for you. For me.”

Indignant and ashamed, I started to scowl.

“I assume you're not stupid,” continued Mary. “You have a slightly more contemporary understanding of the world than our archaic parents? You and your—” She gestured haphazardly. “Your theater minions. Your thirst for tequila. You drew conclusions about Nadine and me years ago, correct?”

The truth was that my parents had withheld the necessary information. I had never known Nadine had anything to do with Mary running away. But how could I tell my sister that our parents had stopped saying her name? That I had stopped caring?

Simply ashamed, I lied and said yes.

“Good. But just so you know, this letter isn't the whole story. It probably seems that way to you, but trust me. You don't know what happened.”

I didn't necessarily believe her, but I wasn't about to argue.

“I'm sorry,” I said again. With my hand curled into a fist, I rapped my knuckles against the door frame. I didn't want to leave. I wanted her to invite me into her room and tell me everything.

“She's not trying to hurt me.” Mary closed her eyes. “And she definitely doesn't want me back.”

“Then what does she want?” I asked.

Mary looked at the box, like it was a beloved, sleeping pet. “She wants to forgive me.”

T
he Essential Five spent a few perfect minutes together before everything went to hell.

Mr. McFadden was late for rehearsal on Monday. In all the months he had been our director, he had never once been late. “Where do you think he is?” asked Liane, her face scrunched with concern.

Charlie yawned. “Maybe his seventh cup of coffee propelled him into cardiac arrest.”

“Maybe,” proposed Tess, “he and Mr. Walker admitted their true, flamboyantly gay feelings for each other and are necking in the supply closet.”

“Necking?” Liane looked skeptical.

“Necking can be nice sometimes.” Tess sighed, like necking was a lost art we didn't appreciate.

Charlie startled us by collapsing across the stage. Prostrate, he announced, “I haven't slept in a week. Wake me if the bastard ever shows.”

Tim lay down beside him. “O true apothecary!” He quoted Romeo's last words. “Thy drugs are quick!”

“Don't kiss me,” preempted Charlie.

“You can kiss me.” Tess settled with her head against Tim's chest. He kissed his own fingers and pressed them to her cheek. It occurred to me that nobody had mentioned the pact in a long time.

Nonessential cast members were slumped in auditorium chairs, unsure if they should climb the stage while the five of us lay there in a territorial arc. We must have looked like kids in the grass, staring at clouds.

With his apparent ability to read my mind, Charlie cried, “I see a donkey!”

Tim didn't miss a beat. “I see an ice-cream cone!”

In unison, the four of them delivered my infamous line: “And I see overcast skies with a forty percent chance of precipitation!” Their laughter sounded like something that could cure me, even if it came at my expense.

“I haven't seen that commercial in months,” said Charlie.

“Me neither,” realized Liane.

“Good,” I said bitterly. “I hope it's gone forever.” But I knew that, on the off chance I ever wanted to see it again, my mother had a copy stashed somewhere.

“Where is he?” Charlie actually sounded worried. “He's twenty minutes late.”

I took a deep breath. “Maybe,” I theorized, “he's not our real director. He's just a man acting as an actor acting as our director.”

Everyone laughed again. I didn't dwell on the fact that something had to be seriously wrong for Mr. McFadden to miss rehearsal. Because before I had ever wanted his lips on mine, we had been the Essential Five. Before I had even wanted Charlie's lips on mine, we had been the Essential Five. And for the first time in forever, I thought that might be enough.

I felt Charlie's knuckles bump lightly against my hip. I lifted my chin to smile at him.

We were practically blinded by a flash of light. The auditorium doors flew open and clanged shut. Rising on my elbows, dazed, I watched the school secretary make her frantic way down the aisle.

Her announcement was shrill. “Boys and girls, rehearsals are officially canceled until further notice!”

A flat chorus of disbelief echoed across the auditorium. I wasn't sure if I was responsible for any part of the sound. My heart clenched like a fist. I was rising to my feet, like it was my job to find him.

“Rebecca Rivers.” The secretary's eyes met mine, briefly. But in that second I felt the ice-cold sting of her judgment. Like she knew every messed-up fantasy I had ever entertained. “Please report to the principal's office.”

A cop was stationed beside Principal Gladstone—her arms crossed, her head hanging slightly to one side—but it was the sight of my parents on twin metal folding chairs that prompted fresh panic to balloon in my chest. My mother was sobbing and my father was staring at his feet.

“Where's Mary?” I asked. I couldn't make sense of my parents' presence, unless something had happened to Mary.

Principal Gladstone cleared his throat. “Who is Mary?” He looked past me to my parents.

“Our older daughter,” Dad answered softly.

“Rebecca, please sit down. This has nothing to do with your sister.”

The balloon lost a tiny bit of air. I perched on the edge of the only empty seat.

“I would like you to meet Detective Bunt.” Gladstone nodded to the cop at his side. “She's going to ask you a few questions. It is very important that you answer one hundred percent honestly.”

“Tell me what's happening.” My voice came out forceful, like it does when I really, really need it to.

“You're not in trouble,” lied Gladstone. “Detective Bunt, you may proceed.”

The cop removed a pad of paper from her breast pocket. I wondered if she had a gun. I wondered if she had ever used it. Pen poised, she appraised me with narrow eyes. “I understand you're the star of the school play?”

I had expected her to speak soothingly, like a therapist. She spoke like a man.

“Yes,” I whispered.

“And you, along with a number of other students, have been rehearsing under the direction of Stephen McFadden every day after school from three to six p.m.?”

I nodded.

“And how long have you known Stephen McFadden?”

“I don't know. I mean, he's the drama teacher, so.” I looked to Principal Gladstone. He was concentrating on making a straight wire out of a paper clip.

The cop repeated herself. “How long have you—”

“I just mean, I've been going to this school since ninth grade, but you can't audition for the plays until—”

“Miss Rivers.” The cop made no attempt to hide her irritation. “Please answer the question. When did you first speak to Stephen McFadden?”

“Last September.”

“So you have known him fourteen months?”

“Yes.”

“And how many times has he driven you in his personal vehicle?”

I glanced at my parents. “Twice.” My mother released a fresh sob.

“When?” The cop was scribbling into her notepad. She had to be scribbling so many more words than I was saying.

“The last day of school, last year. And on Halloween this year.”

Her pen moved in the shape of a checkmark. “Why did your director drive you home?”

“Which time?” I stalled.

“Both.”

“In June I stayed late to help him pack up old props. He was giving a lot of stuff to Goodwill. I carried a box to his car and then he drove me straight home.”

Without lifting her pen, Bunt looked up at me. “Were you aware of the school rule prohibiting a teacher from driving students without pre-obtained permission?”

I shook my head.

“Why did he drive you home on October thirty-first?”

“There was a bad storm.”

“Did he offer rides to the entire cast?”

It was a stupid question; there were too many of us. “No.” I was trying hard not to cry. “Everyone else had left.”

The cop raised one eyebrow—a muscular capability that, as an actress, I envied.

“I stayed late to talk about the play,” I explained.

Principal Gladstone pinched the bridge of his nose. I listened to the scratching of Bunt's pen and my mother's rattled breaths. Finally, Bunt fired her next shot. “Where did Mr. McFadden take you after rehearsal on the thirty-first?”

“Home,” I insisted.

“Did he take you to the 24-Hour Hotcake and Steak House?”

Laughter escaped my throat. “Of course not. He would never take me there.”

After a long pause, Bunt asked her next question slowly, like English wasn't my strong suit. “So you're saying he drove you straight home?”

“Yes.”

Detective Bunt's stare did not waver. People always think kids will tell the truth if you stare at them hard enough. I matched her gaze, even as my hands shook.

“How many times have you made arrangements to see Mr. McFadden outside of school?”

“Never.” Because even though I had seen him outside of school, it had never happened on purpose.

“Has he ever spoken to you or interacted with you in any way that made you uncomfortable?”

I shook my head.

“Has he ever touched you?”

Now my father threw his hands in the air. “This is ridiculous!” he cried. “How could he touch her without making her uncomfortable?”

The cop stared at my father like he was the biggest idiot. “Mr. Rivers, a student claims to have seen your daughter riding in Mr. McFadden's personal vehicle, dining with him at a popular restaurant on Powell Boulevard, and embracing him in the staff parking lot. Our source is a responsible student who does not appear to be motivated by anything other than concern for a peer.”

Feeling faintly dizzy, I gripped the edge of the principal's desk.

“Who was it?” I demanded. Minutes ago, Charlie had been lying beside me on the stage floor, looking almost like he didn't completely hate me. No part of me wanted to believe he could do something like this. “Because whoever said that stuff is lying. He drove me home, straight home, twice like I said. We never went out to eat. He would never suggest that in a million years, I swear to god.”

The cop stared vacantly at the opposite wall, like she was playing back my words inside her head. “Well?” she asked. “What about the third claim? The student witnessed you with Mr. McFadden in the staff parking lot, last Friday.”

“We had just finished a really bad rehearsal.” I kept my eyes shut against the crowded office. It took all of my concentration to select the right words. “I—I hadn't done a very good job. I messed up my lines. I mean, I remembered them but I delivered them wrong. I just wanted to talk to him afterward.”

“Why didn't you see him at his desk?”

“He wasn't at his desk.” Could I reveal my knowledge of Mr. McFadden's routine? After rehearsal he went to the staff lounge for coffee, and then to his car. Would I keep track of these things if I wasn't in love with him? “I didn't know where he was,” I lied, “but I knew I had a chance of meeting him in the parking lot.”

“So you waited by his car?”

Nodding, I opened my eyes. Bunt dropped her chin and wrote frantically. “What did he say to you?”

“He said it was normal to have a bad rehearsal before opening night and that everything would be fine.”

“What did you say to him?”

“I don't remember.”

Of course I remembered asking Mr. McFadden about Nadine, but I knew I could not under any circumstances mention our unlikely history. That he had known my sister, that the three of us had once performed onstage together, was a total coincidence. But maybe it was also the thread that could unravel everything.

“Did he kiss you?”

“Of course not.” I faked confidence. I did not explain how I had slipped on the ice, because it didn't make sense. You don't slip if you stand still.

“He didn't kiss you, or hug you?”

My father raised his voice for the second time. “Why would my daughter lie about this? The theater program at this school means everything to her.”