Nobody's Angel (21 page)

When she saw Lynne’s face over breakfast, Lucy knew she’d made the right choice of discretion over valor the night before. Her mother wore a long-suffering expression that tugged at Lucy’s guilt mechanism. An internal struggle kept her silent for a moment, but she lost the battle.

“What is it, Mom?” she asked. Carl was having his breakfast in bed and they would be undisturbed.

“Nothing.” Lynne sniffed, and vigorously cracked eggs into a bowl.

“It must be something.” Lucy strongly suspected she hadn’t managed to get back this morning quite as secretly as she would have hoped.

“It really is none of my business.” Lynne enthusiastically whisked the eggs in the bowl. At this rate, Lynne would be able to beat the air it was so thick. “Would you like scrambled or an omelet?”

If Lucy said poached, her mother would tip the entire lot into the trash and start again, without so much as a reproachful look. Lynne reserved her displeasure for much larger transgressions.

“Whatever you want to make is good with me.”

The silence in the kitchen grew deeper as Lynne scrambled eggs. Lucy got up to make the toast. Lynne moved around the kitchen, her gestures quick and jerky as if she could barely contain them.

“Mom?”

Lynne pulled the pan of eggs from the heat.

“Mom, do you want to talk about something?” She had no idea how long she would still be in Willow Park. It seemed such a stupid waste of time to spend it like this. All she knew was what last night meant to her. Without knowing how much, if anything, it meant to Richard. She had no business building castles in the air.

“There is nothing to talk about.” Lynne scraped eggs onto a plate and slid it beneath Lucy. The plate hit the counter with a solid clunk.

“You seem angry.” Lucy fiddled with her fork. Her mother was not going to make this easy for her.

“I’m not angry.” Lynne jerked her face away from Lucy’s sight. “What have I to be angry about?”

“Oh, Mom.” Lucy wanted to scream her frustration. “Can we not do this, just once, can we not do this?”

“Well then, Lucy, what would you like us to do?” Lynne turned and looked at her, her face rigid with disapproval.

“I would like it, if we could talk about whatever is making you angry and not do this . . . this.” Lucy didn’t really have the words and she waved her arms to encompass the two of them and the kitchen.

“Is that what you would like?” Lynne thrust her chin out belligerently and Lucy got the first inkling her mother was more than upset with her.

Lynne was angry. It didn’t happen often, but when it did, it was noteworthy.

Unease flickered through Lucy as she studied her mother’s implacable expression.

Lynne crossed her arms over her chest. “Because we spend a lot of time on what you would like. We talk about it all the time.” Lynne’s eyes narrowed into angry slits. “I have an idea. Let’s talk about what I would like?”

“Okay?” Lucy answered carefully. Lynne burned on a long slow fuse, but when she reached the end—duck.

“What I would like is for you to stay away from Richard Hunter.” It burst out of Lynne in a low, furious hiss of noise that was no less powerful for its quietness. “But you knew that, didn’t you? And it didn’t stop you. I know you were over there again last night.”

“Mom . . .” She was thirty years old; she didn’t have to account for her whereabouts.

“Haven’t you done enough yet?” Lynne’s face grew flushed. “You left so much wreckage behind you, you know, Lucy?”

“I am not trying to hurt anyone.”

“And yet you do, anyway.” Lynne uncrossed her arms and slapped her hands against the counter. “You come back talking about how you are a new person, but look at you.” Lynne shook one hand at her. “You’re the same. Doing the same things all over again.”

“That’s not true.” Lucy was armored and ready for attack from Carl, but from Lynne, it found a raw nerve and scraped.

“People in this place have long memories,” continued Lynne as if she hadn’t spoken. “And not one of them has forgotten how it was. How you were. And now you are back and messing with a young man who has become a respected member of this community. A man who, as far as I know, is still married.”

“I’m not messing with him, Mom. This is a mutual thing.”

“I don’t care about that.” Lynne’s lips thinned into a hard line. “It’s wrong is what it is. It’s wrong and you knew that, but you went ahead and did it anyway. Just like you used to do.”

Lucy struggled to control her anger. The need to defend herself bubbled up in her throat, but she fought it. “You know, Mom, one of the things I have had to learn is to let go of the past.”

Lynne rounded on her. “Isn’t that wonderful for you. I wish we all had that convenient free pass you have.”

“Mom?” Lucy blinked at Lynne. Free pass? Oh, that was a good one. Here, have a pass to rigorous and relentless honesty with yourself. Have fun with that. All you have to do is drag your sorry ass out of the shit that being an alcoholic landed it in.

“It would be nice if we could all say sorry and get a ‘do-over.’ But life doesn’t work like that, Lucy. You don’t get to do whatever you want and then say sorry and everything is all right again. There are consequences to your actions and you have to live with them. You made your bed, my girl, and now you get to lie on it.”

“Mom.” Lucy’s gut churned. Her mother’s anger was like a wave of hurt that hit her full frontal and traveled through her, striking most major organs on the way through. “Mom, I can’t change the things I’ve done. I can only take responsibility for them, ask forgiveness, and move on.”

“How very convenient,” Lynne sneered at her and Lucy recoiled physically.

She’d always wondered how her mother quelled all the anger she must have built up over the years. Now she was beginning to see. It didn’t dissipate. It seethed quietly until the floodgate could safely be opened.

“You get to move on and everyone else gets to live with the consequences. Goodness me, but I wish we could all be so lucky.” Lynne gave a brittle little laugh.

“I understand there were consequences to my actions. I live with them too.”

“No, you don’t.” Lynne actually raised her voice. “You swanned off to New York and then Seattle. You weren’t here to see the way people laughed behind my back about my uncontrollable daughter. They pitied me. Do you know that? I could see it in their eyes.”

“Mom, I—”

“Me, they pitied me, Lynne Redley Flint. God help me. Most of their fathers worked for mine. All these years, they have been waiting to see me fall. And it was my own daughter, my flesh and blood, who gave them what they wanted.” Lynne took a shaky breath. “You were my pride and my joy, Lucy. I gave you everything. All I had inside me to give and then more and it wasn’t enough for you. You had to go and be an alcoholic and then throw your body around like you were nothing more than cheap trash.”

Lynne breathed heavily, her face flushed with her emotion. “And they laughed at me. I was so proud of you and you dragged both of us down. I don’t understand any of this, Lucy. I don’t understand it and I don’t accept it.”

Lucy sat there for a long moment. Slut, drunk, worthless, embarrassment—all names she had called herself. It was a surreal experience to hear the voice in her head come out of someone else’s mouth.

Only she hadn’t stopped there. Her anger with herself had run way deeper and been far more damaging. As fast as the ugly accusations rose, they subsided again. She was none of those things, perhaps she never had been. An alcoholic, yes, but the rest of it was all pointless self-flagellation. Hearing it directed at her was oddly liberating. There were no harsher words that anyone could hurl at her than the ones she used to torment herself. Being an alcoholic was not a life sentence of shame and degradation. She was done with that.

Lynne, it appeared, was not done yet.

A year ago, Lucy had sat with her mother in her small apartment in Seattle and asked Lynne for her forgiveness. For all the pain and the humiliation and the disappointment. Until this moment, had her mother really been honest with her about anything?

They had cried and hugged and mopped each other up and when it was all over, they had agreed to move forward. Only one of them had moved forward.

Lynne had not forgotten and neither had she forgiven.

Lucy got slowly to her feet.

Lynne turned her back and got busy scrubbing at the kitchen counter. Her entire body vibrated with the movement of her vigorous cleaning.

Lucy felt a bit as if she were moving through a haze. There were so many thoughts clamoring for her attention she couldn’t quite tease out one thought thread and follow it through.

Carl had been the demanding and judgmental one, not Lynne. It was always Carl who pointed out her faults and her failures.

Lynne was the rock on which Lucy built her house. Lynne was the one who believed in her and understood her.

Lucy watched with helpless fascination as the foundation beneath her cracked and crumbled. Somehow she found her way up the stairs and into her bedroom.

All the clutter and detritus of her life was suddenly almost obscene. This was the web Lynne had woven around and through her for thirty years.

Carl had thundered and bullied her into submission. That, she had been able to stand against, toe to toe, and fight.

This was more insidious and far, far more effective.

She sank slowly onto her bed and looked around her. She had been fragmented for so long, it had become her normal. Inside were two Lucys. There was the girl plastered all over this room, a desperate creature trying to grow and develop and being prodded and pushed into a shape that was more pleasing to her creator.

And then there was this Lucy. The one who had finally emerged from the chrysalis, battered and bleeding, but determined to find her way out.

Lucy stood and went to the corkboard above the desk. Her younger self stared back at her. Green eyes wide, defiant, and determined, grabbing for life with the desperation of a drowning girl. Because in this house she had drowned and here she had not existed other than as an extension of Lynne or Carl.

With a shaking finger she traced the lines of her face in the picture. What a beautiful face it was. She studied the younger version of the features she saw in the mirror every morning. This girl was her and so agonizingly young. For all her faults, she was a child, a young girl, on the brink of womanhood, lost and desperate.

Lucy had spent so much of her life hating and despising this girl, the girl who did the bad things. This was a bad, bad girl and should be shut down and tucked into a corner.

Lucy unpinned a picture of her and Ashley. They must have been all of twelve, dressed in tattered shorts and T-shirts that read
WILLOW PARK DAY CAMP.
Ashley had her arm around her neck in a stranglehold and Lucy wore most of the popsicle in her hand all around her mouth.

She smiled at the girls. Just two young girls, not bad, evil girls who deliberately betrayed their fathers and broke their mothers’ hearts, just two young girls laughing on a summer day.

She stepped closer to the other pictures.

There were more, later pictures. Lucy dressed up for a prom, all Lolita-like in an ice-pink, silk dress.

Not a bad girl at all, a young girl, growing and stretching and trying to find her way. A woman started to peer out cautiously from within the child, so delicate and fragile and so ready to take on all comers.

“Hello.” Lucy touched a fingertip to her graduation photo.

Richard was there, standing behind her and beaming down at her. She mugged it up for the camera with her diploma and her cap.

“We know how to do better now,” she said out loud, her voice a soft whisper in the silence of the room.

She turned back to the room and shrugged. What did it matter if Lynne wanted to cling to this stuff? The real Lucy was no longer in the past.

Brooke’s house was not hard to find. In fact, it stuck out like a pair of dog’s balls in a block of aging Willow Park grande dames. Brooke and Christopher must have had a special friend in town planning.

Gone was the red-face brick, beneath layers of stucco white, Moroccan-style plasterwork. All the old cottage pane windows had been removed and tortured into arches that appeared strangely out of proportion. An entire wing was tacked onto one side of the original house. It started under the eaves, went straight up, and then tapered into half an A-frame. A child with a set of building blocks had, clearly, been their architect.

Lucy took a deep breath. She was not here to judge.

“Lucy?” Brooke appeared on the front step beneath a soaring arch that had once been a square-fronted porch. Today, she was poured into shiny, black trousers. Her coat was bright red with the arms covered in zebra print, the heads of which opened their maws over her chest and shoulders. “Can I help you with something?”

Here goes.
Lucy sucked in a breath and tried to calm the butterflies overrunning her stomach. She felt ready this morning to do this. Lucy had the feeling she would need all her newfound fortitude, because Brooke was not looking in the least welcoming. Not a shocker after the scene in the store, but not exactly encouraging, either.

“Actually”—Lucy tried to keep her smile warm and open—“I wondered if you had a minute?”

“What for?” Brooke folded her arms with a wide sweep of her zebra.

Lucy flinched. It was a fair question, but not one she had a short answer for and certainly not one she wanted to get into standing on the sidewalk. “It won’t take long,” she evaded neatly. “I need to come in for a bit.”

Lucy shivered under the hostile rake of Brooke’s eyes as the other woman studied her intently. It looked like Brooke might refuse and then she shrugged and motioned for Lucy to follow. The heels of Brooke’s boots clipped sharply against the terra-cotta tiles as Lucy trailed her into the house.

Lucy stopped dead inside the door, shaken out of her purpose for an instant. A giant Versailles, crystal chandelier dominated the entrance hall. Colored crystals had replaced the clear ones and shed their jeweled tones all over the walls and floor.

“Spectacular, isn’t it?” Brooke murmured from beside her. A rapt expression spread across her features. “Christopher had it specially made for our eighth anniversary.”

Lucy turned to look at her in surprise.

Brooke’s pale blue eyes dared Lucy to comment.

Lucy leaned over to take off her boots. It gave her a moment to collect her thoughts. Brooke must have worked fast, because nine years ago Lucy had left town with her then-boyfriend.

“Yes,” Brooke said, having read her mind. “We have been married almost nine years.”

Forget fast, Brooke must have had a meteoric courtship.

“We met, fell in love, and six weeks later, voila.” She flashed a rock the size of Lucy’s purse at her and tittered happily.

Brooke wrestled free of the zebras to reveal more animal print beneath.

Lucy was no expert, but she thought this might be snow leopard. Or close enough. She shrugged out of her old black parka and Brooke hung it beside the door.

There was a definite order to the coat hooks. First, there was a man’s jacket. Christopher, she guessed. The next hook was impaling the zebras and the following two were clearly for children, one blue and one pink.

Brooke examined her from head to toe, not missing a thing. Her eyes were of such a light blue that in some lights they appeared almost colorless. It could be a bit disconcerting, having those unfriendly orbs turned in your direction.

Lucy took a careful breath and smiled cautiously.

“We should sit.” Brooke turned suddenly, leaving Lucy to follow in her wake.

Lucy took the opportunity to mentally run through the speech she and Mads had worked on. Her mind kept going blank. Now that she was here, in Brooke’s home, the past throbbed alive and palpable between them. Lucy cursed herself for not trying to have this meeting on neutral ground. But it was a miracle Brooke had agreed to see her at all.

Lucy stopped a moment on the threshold of the living room. Blue, blue, and blue, everywhere you looked, from the sofas to the drapes to the carpet. So blue, it made the back of Lucy’s eyeballs ache. And when it wasn’t blue, it was gold and that, too, assaulted her eyes. A huge gas fireplace dominated one end of the room. Disembodied blue flames danced in eerie solitude above blue glass pebbles. The heat it put out was making Lucy’s scalp itch already and she chose a seat farthest from the inferno. It seemed a fitting place from which to do penance.

“Lucy Flint.” Brooke stood opposite her and stared. She shook her head at the peculiarity of it all. “Sitting here. Now.”

“Brooke,” Lucy began on a deep breath. It was time. “Thank you for seeing me.”

Brooke shrugged one shoulder, as if it were a minor inconvenience. “I have no idea what this is about, Lucy.” She settled onto one of the blue velour chairs near the fire. “But
I
have not forgotten how civilized people behave.”

“Well, thank you.” Lucy took a breath. “I think I should start out by telling you I am an alcoholic.”

Brooke’s eyes lit appreciatively. This was excellent fodder for the gossip canon.

Lucy grit her teeth and got on with it. “I have always had a problem with alcohol, but it took me until my late twenties to realize I was no longer in control of my drinking.”

Brooke went a deeper shade of pink and a soft sheen of anticipation glowed on her skin.

“It was then I sought some help.” It was getting harder now and Lucy took a moment to gather her thoughts. “I went to AA and they put me on their twelve-step program. I am now at step nine and that is about making amends to people who I have hurt or injured.”

A small frown crossed Brooke’s forehead and Lucy could sense the change in the other woman. She was not nearly as eager to hear what Lucy had to say anymore.

Lucy got to the meat of it. “Brooke, when I left Willow Park, with Jason, I can only imagine how much that must have hurt and I want you to know I regret it.”

Brooke’s face had gone a bit pasty looking.

Lucy could see the hurt no amount of bling could hide. It stared out of Brooke’s face at her accusingly. The past was not a kind place for the other woman. “But even before Jason, I treated you very badly. I said and did things that were unkind and hurtful,” Lucy said softly, not wanting to leave new wounds on top of old scars. This was not the purpose of her visit today, at all.

“You used to call me pudding,” Brooke said in a dull, flat voice that hid more pain than Lucy cared to dwell on.

“I remember that, too,” she said. “Brooke, I am here to tell you I realize how badly I hurt you and I am truly sorry for the pain I caused you. When I drank, I only focused on myself to the detriment of others. It is not an excuse for my behavior, but it is an explanation and one you deserve. My drinking was an illness that seeped into every area of my consciousness and caused me to behave in ways I am not proud of.”

Brooke had gone completely still, but Lucy forged forward. “It has taken all this time to realize how much I injured you and I ask your forgiveness. You are under no obligation to give it, but I want you to know I am deeply and sincerely sorry for any hurt I caused you and if there is any way you can think of that I can make it up to you, you need only ask.”

Lucy sat back in her chair and waited. Her heart pounded loudly in the stretched silence.

“Well.” Brooke sat back suddenly. “Well,” she said again. “You always drank too much.” Brooke recovered some of her composure and her face lost the sickly pallor.

“Yes, I know.” Brooke had not even seen her drinking at its worst. “I have never had any control when it came to alcohol, which is why I am where I am now.”

“Hmm?” Brooke frowned again and worked at her bottom lip with her teeth as if she were weighing something carefully. “You have stopped drinking?”

“Yes.”

“Forever?”

“That’s how it works.” Lucy nodded.

“And now you come back to Willow Park and say you’re sorry. Sorry for all the things you have done and the people must forgive you. Just like that.”

Lucy’s mouth twisted ruefully. “I can’t change the past, Brooke. I can only take ownership for what I did, beg your forgiveness, make it up if I can, and move on.”

Brooke continued to sit there and stare at Lucy. “You are sorry?” Brooke drew the words out thoughtfully. “This is what you came here to say?” Her voice was not quite steady and her body was as tense as a drawn bowstring.

“I realize it probably seems inadequate when all is said and done,” Lucy said, shrugging helplessly. “So, if there is anything I can do to prove my sincerity, I would happily do so.”

Brooke gave a short bark of laughter and patted her hair self-consciously. Her hands were not quite steady. “You know what you can do for me, Lucy Flint?” She paused and turned to face Lucy.

Hot, angry tears glittered in her pale eyes and her jaw worked spasmodically as if she were reaching desperately for control. “You can give me back my beautiful party. The one I spent nearly a year planning and you ruined. You took it from me without a thought. Can you do that for me?”

“Brooke . . .” The blood drained from Lucy’s face.

“You can give me back my boyfriend, the love of my life. You can give me back Jason.” Brooke lurched forward suddenly until her face was mere inches away.

Lucy shrank back reflexively.

Brooke made no effort to conceal her anger and her bitterness. “Do you know how they laughed at me? They pitied me. They all looked at me and felt sorry for me. I crawled, Lucy Flint. I crawled through this town like a joke.”

“I am so sorry.”

Brooke was not listening to her. “I want you to crawl like I did. I want you to feel my shame. That’s what you can do for me, Lucy Flint.”

Lucy got unsteadily to her feet. Frantically, she searched for the right words, but her mind was blank. She tried to think what Mads would say, but she couldn’t.

Brooke had risen to her feet as well.

“I can’t go back and change things,” Lucy stuttered, her heart racing. “I can only do things differently in the future.”

“Yes, I heard. You can only say you’re sorry and beg for forgiveness.” Brooke cut her off again. “You haven’t changed.” Brooke stalked toward her, her voice low and menacing. “Nothing about you has changed. You come here, today, speaking about your regrets, but I saw you, Lucy, and I know that it’s all more lies.”

The hair on the back of Lucy’s neck rose.

“I saw you sneaking out of Richard’s house this morning.”

Lucy went cold and then hot.

“You are doing what you always did, taking everybody else’s man. He is married, Lucy, married to Ashley, but you never let that stop you. Never.” Brooke made a slashing motion with her hand and Lucy stepped back.

“Forgive you?” Brooke’s voice rose to a shriek. “I don’t forgive you, Lucy Flint, not now and not ever. I wish on you all the pain and humiliation you caused me. I wish every scornful word you said to me and every single thing you did to hurt me back on you. Do you understand me? Do you hear me, Lucy Flint?”

Lucy had to get out of here. Brooke’s malice poisoned the air until it became difficult to breathe. “I think I should go.” Her feet carried her quickly to the door. Her mind registered only the need to escape.

Brooke had seen her this morning, which meant that the entire Willow Park community would know by the end of the day. Ashley would know, if she didn’t already.

“Yes, you should go.” Brooke scrambled after her. “You should go. You should get out of my house.”

Her tirade gathered momentum as she followed Lucy out of the living room. “And you should get out of Illinois completely. Go back to Seattle. Leave here. We don’t want you here. Not me, not Ashley, and not Richard, nor any of the others that you crapped on.”

Somehow Lucy made it out the door. She was almost running as she reached the sidewalk. Beneath her hastily pulled-on boots, her feet slid and slipped on the ice, but she didn’t slow down. Her heart jumped in her throat. She thought she might be sick.

Brooke’s hatred was a living thing pursuing her down the street.

She pulled out her cell with shaking hands and hit speed dial. It hurt more than she could have imagined. It hurt and it shamed her. She must have said something coherent, because the next thing she heard was Mads, firm and gentle.

“You have to breathe, Lucy, breathe.”

She dragged air into her lungs obediently and somehow managed to push it out again. She told the story haltingly, not quite believing it, even as she recited the details.

“Okay, Lucy Locket,” Mads spoke again, soothing her with that dark, velvet voice. “There are always one or two like that, but you have to let it go, Lucy Locket. Do you hear me?”

“I hear you,” Lucy whispered into the phone.

“You breathe in and you breathe out and you let it go. She is not able to forgive you. It’s sad and regrettable, but it’s her choice and the reasons she can’t are hers to own. Got that?”

“Yes,” Lucy lied unconvincingly.

“You will.” Mads chuckled softly. “You did the right thing, Lucy. Now let it go.”

“Just like that?” Lucy gave a harsh bark of laughter.

“No,” Mads returned quickly. “There’s quite a bit more to it than that.”