When We Were Friends (39 page)

She and Alex watched each other’s faces a moment, Posy’s eyes shifting uncomfortably to me and back to Alex before she dipped her head in a nod. Alex immediately smiled and leaned to kiss her cheeks European style, left, right and left again. She smiled back, squeezing his shoulder, then turned to me. “The squatter!” she said. “And the baby squatter.” She gave Molly the kind of smile people give when they don’t much like something, but know they’re supposed to.

It was true that Molly wasn’t at her best. The heat had gotten to her; her face was red and thin tendrils of her hair were plastered to
her head, like dark Sharpie stripes drawn onto her skull. But still, that smile made me take an instant dislike to Posy. I held out my free hand. “I’m Leah. It’s so nice to meet you.”

She took my hand. Even her palm was cool. “Pleasure, Leah. Alex, would you mind getting my bags out of the trunk? My back’s acting up again.”

She handed him a set of keys and he took them, smiling. “Posy’s back thing is all a ruse. She’s been using it since we were teenagers trying to get out of cleaning her room.”

Posy pretended to backslap him. “Okay, that’s it, I’m taking you out of my will.”

“Of course she uses that too.” Alex started toward her car. “She thinks it’s her best bargaining chip.”

This brother-sister banter was fascinating to me, partly because I’d always dreamed of having a sibling, wondered what it would be like. But also because it seemed so strange seeing Alex interact with this doppelgänger-stranger who’d known him since childhood. It was like he’d regressed into a teenager.

“We’ve set you up in here,” I said, leading her to the living room where we’d already unfolded the sofa bed. “The mattress is actually really comfortable, not one of those thin, crinkly things where you can feel the coils.” I was rambling, I realized that, but I couldn’t stop myself. She made me nervous. “My first bed ever was a sofa bed, because it was all we could afford. And get this, it was a
used
sofa bed, that smelled like cigarettes.” Molly started whimpering, beating my shoulder with her fist, so I set her into the fort I’d made earlier from the sofa cushions, stacked to serve as a pseudo-playpen. “And then we got a real bed,” I continued, “which was when my mom realized why I always smelled like a bar. But the smell of cigarette smoke still makes me sleepy.”

Posy pressed her palm on the mattress, her face skeptical, then turned to Alex who had just entered the living room with two huge blue Samsonite suitcases. “Y’know, I really do have a bad back, whatever you say. A couple nights on this thing and I’ll be a quadriplegic.”

“You’re not doing this, Posy. Leah spent a couple hours fixing the room up for you; isn’t it nice?”

Earlier I’d arranged the end tables like night tables, one holding a basket filled with towels, soap and shampoo, the other holding votive candles, a vase of fresh flowers from the garden and a reading lamp. Since all Alex’s sheets were being used I’d bought a set from the quilt shop, pale yellow with a spring-green comforter to match. So the room
was
nice, cozy and sunshiny. And now my feelings were hurt.

“It’s sweet,” Posy said. “Really it is, and thank you. But I know what it’ll do to me, this mattress. Is there a hotel nearby I could stay at instead?”

Alex rolled his eyes at me, and I shrugged. “Why don’t you take my room?”

“Leah—” Alex said.

“No, really, I should’ve thought of that earlier. You’ll have more privacy up there, and it’s easy enough for me to bring down Molly’s crib and changing table.”

“Oh I hate to displace you,” Posy said, but in a tone that suggested the decision had already been made.

So we carried her things upstairs, and I started pulling the sheets off my bed. As I was about to start back down for Posy’s bedding, Star entered the hallway and stood silently watching us, looking like she was about to confront a challenge—cliff diving or wasp-swatting. “Posy, this is my mom,” I said. “Star.”

“Right! Alex told me about you. Agoraphobia, right? I find neuroses really fascinating.” She reached into the basket I’d prepared, uncapped a bottle of lotion and sniffed at it, then smoothed it on her hands. “We all have them, you know, just some are more troubled by them than others.”

“It’s not a neurosis,” Star said stiffly. “It’s a chronic disease. Like lupus.”

“Oh I wasn’t blaming you for it, just the opposite! It was my way of saying I don’t consider you weird at all. I hope we haven’t got off on the wrong foot.” She shook her head quickly. “I make bad first impressions,
that’s always been my biggest failing, my own psychological problem you could say.” She smiled. “But most people like me when they get to know me. I’m not a bad person, just ask Alex.”

“Well she’s not Hitler or Stalin,” Alex said, smiling. “Mussolini maybe?” He held his palms faceup at his sides, alternated them up and down like a balance. And I found myself suddenly feeling more comfortable around Posy. Not that I’d ever choose her as a friend, but Alex obviously both liked and loved her. That had to mean something; she just was socially awkward, which I could certainly relate to. I remembered as a kid briefly trying on sarcasm, insults, deprecation, thinking they’d make me seem cool and hide all the insecurity. So I felt bad for Posy. She probably had no friends.

“It’s okay,” I said. “Don’t worry about it. My mom’s used to people not getting her; it’s a hard disease to understand.” Which made Star raise her eyebrows at me, like she was wondering who the hell had taken over her daughter’s body. “Plus, we’re not easily offended,” I said, which was true at least of me. Cut someone enough times and they form calluses.

Downstairs, Molly had escaped from her pillow fort and seemed on the verge of combustion, rocking back and forth on her butt, face red from the heat. I lifted her, crooning softly in an attempt to dampen her frustration. “Your sleeping arrangements are changing yet again!” I told her. “Maybe it’ll be good for your personality, make you adaptable, the kind of person who adjusts easily and doesn’t get too attached. Or maybe you’ll become a jet-setter.” I kissed her cheek. “Should we keep the flowers I picked down here? No, let’s bring them up. I think Posy needs them more than we do.”

I lifted the vase, then turned at the sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs, Star and Alex carrying down Molly’s crib. “Corner by the window?” Alex said to Star, then turned to me. “You’re now getting a sense of what my childhood was like.”

“No, I like Posy,” I said. “She’s …” I searched for the right word. “Spunky,” I finished, which wasn’t the right word at all.

“If you say so. Personally I just think she’s a pain.” He set the crib in the corner, then turned to Star, probably having noticed she was
being unusually quiet. “I’m sorry about all that. She doesn’t think before she speaks.”

“S’okay,” Star said, waving her hand dismissively. But there was definitely something bothering her.

I really wasn’t in the mood, but I knew it’d be wrong of me not to address it. “Alex, you mind bringing up the sheets and stuff?” I said. “We’ll be up in a minute.”

“No problem.” Alex smiled grimly, pulled off the bedding and carried it upstairs.

“She’s taking away your bed,” Star said, as soon as he was out of earshot. “Kicking you and Molly out of your room and making you sleep on a sofa.”

“She has a bad back, and I don’t mind sleeping here. Besides, it’s cooler downstairs. She has zero percent body fat, so she’ll deal better with the heat in my room.”

Star pressed her lips together, exasperated.

“What’s going on?” I said. “Was it the neurosis comment? You’ve dealt with that stuff before, and worse.”

“Oh
that’s
not it.” Star walked to a bookcase and ran a thumb across a row of book spines,
thump, thump, thump
. “Look, I have a sense about her. A bad sense, and I know that means nothing to you, which is why I wasn’t going to say anything. But you asked.”

“Okay, I agree I wouldn’t exactly want to go have coffee with her. But I’m sure she’s an okay person. You can tell how much Alex loves her.”

“Alex
has
to love her, she’s family. Besides, Alex loves everybody. A crack whore could walk in with methamphetamine acne and he’d be all, ‘I love how your zits match your eyes!’ ”

I smiled. “Look, she’s only here for a few days. Just stay out of her way if you have to.”

“It’s more than feeling uncomfortable. Okay, Lainey, I may be overreacting, but have you noticed the way she was looking at you? I’m thinking, is there a chance she has some idea who Molly is?”

Reflexive alarm, a knee to the stomach, before I shook my head. “You got that after talking to her for what, all of five seconds?”

“I saw her eyes. You know how intuitive I am.”

“What I know is that you have paranoid personality disorder,” I said. But I remembered the look on Posy’s face when she’d first seen Alex, the uncomfortable glances they’d exchanged before kissing hello. If Alex had told her details about us, and she’d been at all suspicious and tried to look into our background, how hard would it be for her to find the holes in our story?

But I said, “I’m sure she’s nothing more than unpleasant.” And tried to believe it.

Late that night I lay on the sofa bed looking out the bay window at the moon rising over the trees, the haze of the hot night, Molly’s sleeping silhouette in her crib. For the past hour I’d heard the murmur of Alex and Posy’s voices from upstairs, sometimes heated, sometimes halted. I couldn’t hear their words, but it was obvious they weren’t feeling very sisterly-brotherly.

Dinner had been nothing but awkward. Alex had made this incredible meal, filet mignon with a red wine sauce and a potato soufflé that tasted like heaven with butter on top. But Posy had only picked at the meal, saying she didn’t eat red meat or white starches, and Alex had raised his eyebrows at me, saying things like, “More for us, then!” in an overly hearty tone.

And then there were the glances between them, Alex’s questioning and Posy’s reproachful. Was she upset that I was taking advantage of her brother? Did she think there was something going on between us that she didn’t approve of? Or was it something else altogether?

Lying there, sticky with sweat and bleary with sleep as I listened to their voices upstairs, my mind wove stories from Star’s intuition of danger and Posy’s admonishing tone. Posy had probably been exposed to news coverage, and seen the story. What if she’d recognized Molly?

Of course Posy didn’t seem like the kind of person who’d hold
back if she suspected something. Unless she wanted to take us by surprise.

I smiled up at the ceiling.
You
, I told myself,
are a nut job
.

To distract myself, I rose and turned on the computer. I’d been searching for updates twice a day since having talked to Sydney, but today with the distraction of Posy’s arrival, I hadn’t even thought about it. In the past week there’d been no real developments; attention had definitely shifted to Sydney although the authorities refused to comment, and the media was now focusing on her past, her recent treatment for postpartum depression, the dysfunctional childhood that might, conceivably, have given her the sort of psyche capable of killing her own child. At this point everyone was assuming Molly was dead, which was slightly disturbing to see but also definitely for the best. It meant they were searching mostly for a body, perhaps with less intensity. But I knew that could change at any moment if Sydney cracked, or if they got any real evidence that Molly was alive.

Now I did a search on Sydney’s name, the search performed so often that it auto-filled as soon as I started to type. And, there it was. An AP article, the first hit on the list.

Sydney had disappeared.

“Hey,” Alex said as I entered the kitchen. “I got the season’s first local apples yesterday, and I was thinking of making apple pancakes. What do you think? High-carb, high-fat, processed flour, it’ll drive Posy crazy.”

I opened a can of formula and mixed it in a sippy cup, trying to suppress the panic I’d been battling all morning. Sydney had run away. Run away, and what did that mean? Could she possibly find where we were? Did she know a crooked cop or a PI who could figure out where my cell phone calls had come from? Was it possible to find an exact location, or only the closest cell tower? And if Sydney knew where we were, how long would it take for her to get here? “I guess Posy’s not up yet?” I said, trying to sound nonchalant.

“She probably didn’t sleep well. She got a little riled up with everything, as she has a tendency to do.”

“Yeah, I heard you guys talking last night.”

He blinked twice. “You did?”

“I couldn’t hear what you were saying or anything. Just it sounded kind of intense.” Speaking this sentence, I’d realized midway that the tone of my voice would have to change, and so the last words came out sounding strangely chipper. I smiled and shrugged, holding his eyes, willing him to tell me whatever Posy might’ve said about
us. To give a scoffing laugh, say
You’ll get a kick out of this, because Posy thinks …

And I’d laugh back and say,
You’re kidding! But you know it’s not true
.