Tainted (19 page)

What was it—a strange look that passed across Henry's face? Or his tone of voice? Billy wasn't sure, but he sensed that what he was about to say was right:

“Something about him frightens you, doesn't it?”

“For fuck's sake—he's walking up the road now with Holly and Katy. Get your fucking skates on and get out the back. I don't want trouble.”

“All right, but I'll call you later.”

“Go.”

You've already got trouble, Henry,
he thought as he slipped out the kitchen door and headed for the back path down to the beach.
The McCormack woman has lied again. That headmaster went all weird when he looked at Jack's file. And for some reason, you're suddenly frightened of him. We've all got a shedload of trouble.

Whenever she needed to rethink her world, Anna had problems sleeping. If a guy didn't call her when he should have, if her boss didn't appreciate her work, if something was out of kilter, she would work and rework it in a night-time brain race, until it came out in some form she could deal with. She didn't really like the guy anyway, her boss hadn't understood how crucial her role was, but would soon. . . . There were ways to play with the facts and make them fit her vision of how her life should be panning out.

So at two o'clock on Saturday morning, she was wide awake, trying to get her head around the upside-downness of life; specifically the way things had changed with Holly. The new Holly. So different from the Holly she'd known all these years.

She'd more or less bludgeoned Holly into inviting her down for the weekend again, saying it was only fair after she'd been disinvited to the wedding.

“I want to see the honeymooners back in their nest,” she'd said. “Come on, Holl. Let me get a little bit of vicarious bliss. Who knows? It might be catching. I might find my own tall, dark foreigner and marry him in a month. Then we can all go bowling together on Friday nights.”

Holly had laughed and said, “Of course. It will be nice to see you. And I won't even mind if you flirt with Jack again.”

“Hey, Holl, I'm sorry about that. You know me, I—”

“Never mind—just come down on Friday. We'll be here.”

So she'd driven down after work on Friday, unhappy that the weather had turned rainy, but curious to see Holly and Jack in their new husband and wife status. As before, Jack was working that night, so she and Holly and Katy had a spaghetti supper around the kitchen table.

It was one of those hard-to-explain things. Something had changed, but what exactly? That's what kept bothering her during dinner. Holly was friendly and funny and Katy was sweet and eager and they all had fun twirling spaghetti round their forks and slurping it into their mouths. It could have been any Friday night they spent together. Except something was different.

It took until dessert for her to figure it out. She was getting ice cream out of the fridge and when she brought it to the table and put it down in the middle, then stuck three spoons in it, Holly looked at her and smiled and said, “Jack does that too—he puts the spoons in like you do,” and Katy said, “Jack loves chocolate ice cream and so do I,” and Holly put her hand on Katy's shoulder and squeezed it and Anna sat down and thought,
Shit. This is happiness. This is the real thing—and Holly has it. Holly Barrett. The shy, kind of awkward, very smart but not very popular girl.

The first time she'd spoken to Holly, it was only because she felt sorry for her. There was this girl sitting on the steps by the gym on the first day of eighth grade, looking lost and lonely. Anna had been just about to ask her if she was new to the school when she realized that it was Holly Barrett, who'd been in her class the entire year before. That made her feel even sorrier for her, so she said, “Hey,” and gave a little wave to her. “How shitty is it that we're back at this dump for another year?”

Holly had blushed and mumbled, “Yeah, really,” and Anna had almost walked on. Instead she sat down beside her.

“So what's the deal? Do you have Miss Zombie for math again this year?”

“Yes.”

“But you're good at math, aren't you?”

“I'm OK.”

“I wish I were as OK as you.”

“I can help you if you need it any time.”

“Thanks, Holly.”

“No problem.”

They sat there for another couple of minutes, not speaking, until Anna got up, said, “See you,” and left.

After that, Anna began to seek Holly out. She'd sit with her at lunch often, sometimes she'd ask for help after school on her homework. None of her friends understood this new friendship and Anna wasn't sure she did, either, until her best friend Debby cornered her one afternoon, saying, “What's the deal with you and Holly Barrett? Are you hanging out with her because she does your homework for you?”

“No. I hang out with her because I like her and because she's the only person I can be quiet with.”

Debby looked at her as though she were an alien and Anna was surprised too. She hadn't realized before what it was about Holly that she liked. But Holly really was easy to be with. She listened when you felt like talking but didn't expect you to perform all the time like the other girls did. And she wasn't checking out what clothes you wore or competing to be cool. When she was with Holly, she didn't care as much as she normally did about what she looked like.

When Billy Madison showed up at their school the next year, he and she immediately started dating, and the fact that Billy had a summer house almost next door to Holly's made it natural for the three of them to spend time together. Anna hadn't known about Holly's crush on Billy—she was too wrapped up in Billy herself to notice.

It all happened so quickly: she got tired of Billy and ditched him and within a month Holly was pregnant with Billy's child. Anna couldn't believe Holly and Billy had had sex, she couldn't begin to believe Holly was going to go ahead and have the baby, but she wasn't totally surprised by Billy's refusal to be involved. She knew his parents. She knew how much pressure they would put on him. And she knew him. She knew how likely he was to bail and give in to them.

The whole thing was crazy, completely screwed up. And when Holly's parents died, it got even worse. Holly retreated to Birch Point all year round, like some kind of hermit heading for the woods. Anna had done her best to stand by and support Holly, trying to get her to Boston as often as possible. But Holly was always Holly. Reticent, responsible, rational.

Jennifer Aniston had once said that Brad Pitt was missing a “sensitivity chip”—well, Holly lacked a “socializing” chip. She wasn't the type of girl to go to a party, much less meet a man at one, so their weekends out were nothing if not tame. Anna had to admit, when she'd have a bad day, she'd sometimes find herself thinking, “Well, at least I'm not Holly. I'm not a shy, self-conscious single mother living in the boondocks with no hope of ever getting out.”

But not now. Now, it felt as though Holly had gone and robbed some self-confidence bank. Now she was the one who knew who she was and what she wanted—and had gotten it. When Holly had said, “Goodnight, Anna,” a few hours before, there was a tiny tinge of sadness in it. As though Holly was thinking,
You won't have the perfect man with you, but I hope you have a good night anyway
. As though the tables had completely turned and Holly was feeling sorry for
her
.

She threw back the covers, got up and walked over to the window overlooking the driveway. When was it? Their junior year? It must have been around then. She and Holly were sitting at the kitchen table, the one they'd just had their spaghetti dinner at, and Holly's parents were there too and she had made some throwaway remark about how much fun the junior dance was going to be with Billy. She knew as soon as she'd said it that it might sound as though she was gloating—Holly didn't have a date. But it was too late to take it back and anyway, Holly was used to her by now and knew she didn't mean to say anything bad on purpose.

But Mr. Barrett had waited for a while, maybe twenty minutes, and just as she and Holly were about to leave the table, he'd turned to Mrs. Barrett and said, “You know, it's interesting, Julia. How different people peak at different times.”

She'd known right away his words were directed at her. She wasn't half as smart as Holly but she wasn't dumb either. Mr. Barrett came across as laid-back, friendly and quiet, but nothing got past him. He kind of scared her because it was as if he was always weighing things up, figuring things out, his brain busy working away at the important things. Almost as though he could see through you, straight into the bad parts. That one little sentence of his was a warning to her: You might be a hotshot now, but just wait, Anna—my daughter has a whole lot more to her than you do.

Well, you were right, Mr. Barrett. Holly has peaked now. But I still don't want her life, I—

A car drove up. A car with no lights on. Anna instinctively stepped back from the front of the window and stood to the side, peering down at it.

Billy? Had Billy come on some crazed two a.m. stalking mission? But it wasn't Billy's car, it was Holly's. The wipers were crossing the windshield; as they swayed to the left, she tried to see in, but she couldn't distinguish a face in the dark. The driver's door opened then, slowly, and Anna saw Katy climb out.

What the hell? Katy driving?

Jack exited right behind her, out the same door.

Has she been hurt? Did he take her to the hospital? Where's Holly?

She was about to rush downstairs, but then she saw Jack put his finger to his lips and Katy put her finger to her lips too and it was beginning to look as though they were in some crazy play. Jack closed the car door in slow motion, inching it back in place so softly it wouldn't have made a noise when it finally closed. He turned back to Katy then and they gave each other a high five.

Enough already.

Grabbing her bathrobe off the hook on the door, she threw it on over her pajamas, left her room and headed downstairs. The light in the kitchen was on, so she could see where she was going. By the time she'd reached the bottom of the stairs, she saw them both coming toward her. Jack took one look at her, put his finger to his lips again and pointed his other hand in the direction of the kitchen. Katy was nodding and started pointing toward the kitchen too.

“OK, OK,” she mouthed to them both and then followed them.

“What's going on?” she asked as soon as she closed the kitchen door behind her. “Why the—why is Katy driving a car at two o'clock in the morning?”

“Hi, Anna.” Jack smiled. “Nice to see you again.”

“Yeah, right. You too. What's going on?”

“I was driving. Like Mommy used to drive with Grandpa when she was little. He'd let her drive down our road till the cement part started. Jack was letting me do it so I can show Mommy tomorrow when she wakes up.”

“Uh huh. And you woke her up at two in the morning to practice driving?” She stared at Jack. “What's the English word for crazy?”

“Mad. And she was awake already. I passed by her room when I came back from work and I saw her sitting up in her bed wide awake. Right, Katy?”

Katy nodded, with a big smile too.

“So you took her out in the rain in her pajamas to go for a drive?”

“It was really fun, Anna. I'm good at it. Jack said I'm really good at corners.”

“Boy.” Anna rolled her eyes. “That's just brilliant. So what's the English word for inappropriate, Jack?”

“What's the American one for killjoy?” He was still smiling. As though nothing whatsoever was wrong.

The problem with his looks was that it was hard to get over them. She was having a tough time concentrating when she knew she should have been. His face was so supremely faint-worthy that sustaining her already dubious role as an authority on childcare was becoming difficult. Besides, Katy was obviously happy and Jack wouldn't be smiling if he'd been caught doing something he shouldn't have been, would he? Maybe this was some kind of thing English people did with children.

“So you're going to tell Holly about this?”

“Of course. Now, it's probably time for us all to get some sleep. What do you say, princess?”

Katy yawned as if on cue and Jack patted her on the top of the head.

“Time to get going, then. See you tomorrow, Anna. Or rather later today.”

“Right.”

They left the kitchen, went upstairs, and Katy skipped into her room, while Jack continued down the hallway to his and Holly's. Anna's room was across from theirs, at the end. She took off her bathrobe, hung it up and slipped under the covers.

OK, so I'm jealous. Holly has found true love and all is happy in her world. It doesn't mean I can't find it too. There has to be a Jack out there on some bus waiting for me to sit beside him. Anyway, he's not that perfect. I'd prefer French to English. A honeymoon in Paris would be excellent.

When she woke the next morning, she knew she had been in the middle of a dream: a dream featuring Mr. Barrett. The odd thing about it was that it had been a dream replay of an actual event. She was fifteen and in the middle of her romance with Billy. She'd come to Birch Point for the day, a Sunday, and while Billy was busy playing tennis with his father, she'd gone over to visit Holly, but Holly wasn't there. She'd gone out somewhere with her mother. Mr. Barrett answered the door, said he expected them back in a few minutes and invited her in to wait.

“So how's it going at school?” he'd asked as they both sat down in the living room.

In the dream she said, “Lousy. I'm fine in math class because Holly is helping me but I'm in the bottom of my class in most other subjects because I can't be bothered to work. I'm more interested in Billy and parties and having fun. My parents are totally pissed off at me.”

As soon as she said it, she woke up. And remembered instantly that she hadn't said that to him at the time, in reality. She'd smiled and said, “It's going great, Mr. Barrett. It's going really well at school.” Because she didn't want him to think she was even more shallow than he already thought she was. Mr. Barrett was one of those people you always wanted to impress.

“That's nice,” he'd said, nodding his head, but his eyes narrowed a little. “You know, I had lunch with a friend the other day who is a criminal lawyer. And he said something interesting. He said that he could tell now when people were lying—after many years, he'd figured out what gave them away. Ninety-five percent of the time, when someone lies, he—or she—smiles. That says something about human nature, doesn't it?”