When We Were Friends (6 page)

I hadn’t brought up my fake husband that afternoon. But if I saw her again it was sure to come up at some point; she’d ask for details I hadn’t yet formulated, wonder why we were still staying with Star. She’d want to meet him. So no, I couldn’t do this again. But standing there with her, I guess I can admit that I wanted to.

It was a Saturday, more than a week later, that I returned home for lunch covered head-to-toe in brown streaks, to find a strange car in the driveway. Nobody ever came to the door. Other than Pamela, nobody’d been inside for years, not since I’d let in the Jehovah’s Witnesses, a smiling couple whose white hair wafted in startled angles about their faces. They’d showed pictures of children—supported by their ministry—whose legs had been blown off by land mines, and I’d felt so depressed about it that I gave them twenty dollars for a subscription to
Awake!
magazine, and a plastic bag filled with Rice Krispies Treats.

I climbed the porch stairs slowly. Star never let in strangers, never opened the door to them, and certainly never would have left it unlatched. I searched for something heavy, my heart in my
throat, and finally settled on the fake topiary by the door. I pushed the door open and peered behind it, then heard the voices from the den.

“Well David’s the precise definition of a horse’s ass.”

It was Sydney. I held the urn against my chest and tried to remember to breathe.

“Excuse my language, but that’s exactly what he is. Take the back end of a horse and stick on a pretty face, and voilà. Not thinking about what’s right for Jacqueline, not remotely considering how a girl should grow up with her mother, I’m sure you know what I mean.”

“I know exactly,” Star said. “My Richard grew up without his mom, you know, never learned anything about keeping a home, and I just don’t know how he survived before we met. He used to eat spaghetti and oatmeal straight out of the box! And I had to show him there’s a lint catcher in the dryer!”

They were sitting on the wide plaid sofa, Jacqueline in Star’s lap. Star’s face was flushed, either with the excitement of holding a baby or of reliving the past. I felt a bruising in my chest, remembering the weight of Jacqueline in my arms, her hand opening and closing against the back of my neck. “Sydney,” I said.

Sydney turned to me and my eyes widened. Her eye was bruised, there was a large welt on her cheek and a cut above her upper lip. I shook my head slowly. “What happened to you?”

She glanced at Star. “It was nothing, just … I tripped on the sidewalk. And hit a rock. I’m fine other than the obvious fact that I’m a klutz.”

“You need Band-Aids? Or ice?”

“No, seriously, Star already got me ice and this doesn’t even hurt anymore.” She held up a block of frozen spinach and pressed it to her eye, smiling at me bemusedly. And I realized suddenly how I must look, the streaks of paint, my face still flushed with terror, hugging a plastic plant. “I was just going to water this,” I said, and hurried out to the kitchen. I threw the plant into the broom closet, and then rushed back to the den.

“He’s a wonderful man,” Star was saying. “So caring of her. And you know me with all my problems, but he’s always so willing to help.”

“How refreshing,” Sydney said.

The baby made a grunting noise and Star cooed. “Somebody’s gonna need a diaper change soon, won’t they? Won’t they!” She glanced at me. “We were just talking about Kevin.”

“Keith?” Sydney said.

I froze.

“Why yes of course, Keith. I’d swear sometimes that I’m on the edge of senility, doomed to a life of rocking and drooling, but wouldn’t you think I’m too young for it?” Star was grinning at me in complicity. I would have been mortified, but there were too many thoughts racing through me to allow me to feel anything other than shock.

“So I meant to call sooner, but I’ve been …” Sydney swiped her hand to one side, as if batting away a fly. “Busy. But listen, let’s go out for coffee again, hunh? You want to?”

I held up my hands. “I’m filthy.”

“Or we could have coffee here. But I’d love to talk, if that’s okay. Things’ve been happening, and I feel like I’m going crazy.”

“I’ll just go upstairs,” Star said, “leave you girls in private. Do you have a fresh diaper?” She put her nose to the baby’s bottom and made a chortling sound.

“Thanks so much,” Sydney said, handing her a bag. Star pulled out a diaper and wipes, stood and started for the door, winking at me as she passed.

I stepped backward. “I’ll make coffee then.”

“No, don’t bother. My stomach’s too upset for coffee, I just wanted to talk to you alone is all.”

“Right, okay.” I glanced at the armchair, the one with the puffy cushions that was so hard to get out of, hesitated, but decided to sit anyway. “Let’s talk.”

“Thanks.” She lifted the frozen spinach back to her cheek, eyeing me a minute before she spoke. “First, okay here’s the thing. That I
realize we haven’t been all the way truthful with each other, and it’s my fault as much as yours.”

I felt a rumbling of fear down my spine. “What’re you talking about?”

“I just think we have to come clean with each other; you tell me the truth and then I’ll tell you, because I really need to trust you here. I have to know I can trust you.”

I watched her warily, and she met my eye. “Keith,” she said. “I’m talking about Keith.”

My stomach twisted, and it was suddenly hard to breathe. If she’d known, why the hell hadn’t she said anything earlier? She must’ve not wanted to embarrass me; it must be why she hadn’t asked questions about him, to spare me from digging myself into a hole. This was like returning home after a date and seeing that I’d been going around all night with nobody telling me my skirt was tucked into my stockings, my underwear on display.
Time to leave!
my body said.
Time to vamoose! Skidaddle! See ya!

“It’s okay.” Her voice was heavy with sympathy. “You don’t have to say anything.”

I gripped the seat of my chair. All I wanted to do was run up to my bedroom, curl up in a corner, disappear. But something stopped me. Partly the compassion in her eyes, but also the sense that she understood. Remembering third grade when we’d told our classmates we had fathers who took us home with them every weekend, confirming each other’s story whenever anyone challenged it. She knew exactly what it was like to lie about something unattainable and longed for.

“We can just forget about it, okay?” she said. “Please don’t be embarrassed. Plus, look where marriage got me. You’ve done a hell of a lot better in your life than I have. I respect you, Lainey, you’re one of the few people in the world that I respect because I know how
real
you are. And I completely understand what it’s like wanting to impress people; I’ve been doing it my whole life. Like when we met at Six of Swords? There you were, this professional artist, when all I’m
doing is working a cash register, and I felt so inferior I was seriously considering telling you I was working on a law degree.”

I bit the inside of my cheek, watching her, then said, “It was stupid. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, okay? I’m kind of flattered that you’d think I’m worth lying to.” She lifted a glass candy dish from the end table beside her and studied it from all angles like she was considering whether to buy it. “So I’m glad we got that out of the way. I feel better, don’t you?” She smiled. “And it’s so great being here; the house hasn’t changed at all, has it. I mean same furniture, same decorations …”

It was true, nothing had changed since my childhood: the green walls and rag rug, the same porcelain angels on doilies, and pillar candles that were never burned for fear of explosion. I wondered if I should feel insulted, if she was disparaging our lack of taste.

“It reminds me of all those afternoons we spent here, just hanging out. This was probably more of a home than my own home was.” She put down the candy dish, folded her hands between her knees and suddenly, startlingly, her eyes glazed with tears. Were they tears-tears? They seemed so out of character that they might just be allergies or a stray eyelash. “You okay?” I said.

“Oh hell, Lainey.” She took a deep breath. “It’s just there’s all these things going on. Some of them I can tell you about and some of them I can’t, but the gist of it is that my life’s starting to fall apart, and I’m running out of options for putting it back together.”

Upstairs there was a high-pitched baby squeal, and then Star’s voice. “Is that a poopy diaper? Is that a poopy-poop?”

I made a face. Put a baby in front of Star and her brain shriveled like a slug in the sun.

“So I was sitting at home this morning and thinking what the hell I could possibly do, and all I could think was how maybe running into you was providence, that maybe you could help.”

I felt a sudden flush of anger. “After eighteen years you show up and ask me to help you?”

“You have no idea, Lainey, I’m desperate.” She inhaled a quick
breath, as if she was about to sneeze or break out in song. “Okay. Here’s the thing. I have to get away from David, get Jacqueline away from him, but he’s going to win custody is the thing. The courts are going to think he’s got this perfect life, he doesn’t have to work, Mommy and Daddy will support him so he can be home with the baby. But he’s not good for her.”

“I’m sure you could at least get joint custody, unless he can prove you’re unfit. And with joint custody you’d have more time to yourself, right? Be able to maybe find a new job if that’s what you want, figure out what to do with the rest of your life.”

“Jesus, Lainey.” She leaned back on the sofa cushions and squeezed her eyes shut. “The thing is, the thing is, I didn’t actually fall on a rock.”

I watched her for a minute before speaking. “What do you mean?”

“I mean the bruises, my face, it was him. He hits me, Lainey.”

I stared at her, then realized my mouth had dropped open so I snapped it shut.

“Yesterday we had a mediation session which … mediation is such a crock. It’s sitting there and letting him harass me and lie about me while the lawyers nod sympathetically and waste two-fifty an hour.” Her voice was shaking. I reached to touch her hand but she pulled away. “And then this morning he shows up at my door to get back at me for ‘slandering’ him. This was his retribution.”

I shook my head. “Sydney, Jesus … Does anybody else know?”

“I can’t tell anybody. You’re the only one I trust at this point since you don’t know David or his friends. If he found out I went to you I don’t know what he’d do, kill me probably, but I need help. I’m so scared, and I don’t have any idea what to do next except that I have to get Jacqueline away.”

There was another squeal from upstairs and Sydney’s head turned to the doorway, her eyes filling again. “Because this isn’t even the worst of it, Lainey. I can deal with being hit, I lived with it for years, but the thing is …” She pressed her fingers against her eyelids, held them there. “The thing is, I think he abuses her. There’ve been marks on her body.”

My mouth dropped back open.

“Burn marks,” she said, “cigarette burns, I think. Little red spots on her back.”

I thought of Jacqueline’s sweet round face, clammy fingers clutching my stomach. “Sydney. You have to tell somebody, call the cops. Or Child Protective Services, get a restraining order.”

“You’d think that might work, wouldn’t you. That’s what I thought after he broke my arm, that I could go to the cops.”

“He broke your arm?”

“But the McGraths have friends in all the right places. His parents saw us fight, what it used to turn into, but they still managed to twist it around and blame it all on me, and I know that’s what would happen here too.” She looked up at me, her eyes pleading. “If I’d noticed the burns the day I picked her up from David, I could’ve gone straight to the cops. But I was too busy to give her a bath that night, and by the time I saw them I realized how it was going to look. I’d gone a full night without telling anybody? Who’d believe I wasn’t the one who hurt her? Cigarettes when I’m the only one of us who ever smoked, it’s brilliant.”

“This is crazy.” My voice was an awed whisper, not an appropriate tone but it was all I could muster.

Her face went suddenly pink. “Look, maybe I shouldn’t have come to you. I couldn’t stand being alone with it anymore and I thought maybe you could help me figure out what to do, but you’re probably looking at this as some kind of twisted payback.”

“Of course I’m not! I’m just in shock I guess. I’ll help you, I want to help, just tell me what you’re thinking.”

“I’m not thinking anything, it’s impossible to think, I’m all adrenaline and the only thing I want to do is run. But run where? And what if I get caught? If I’m arrested, who’s going to believe my reasons for running? They’d give the baby back to him.”

With her red eyes, cheeks bruised and damp from the sweating spinach block, Sydney’s face looked raw and diseased. I listened to Jacqueline’s squeals from upstairs and Star’s lilting voice, then said, “When’re you supposed to leave her with David again?”

“He gets her every weekend, so I have to drop her off this afternoon.”

I remembered the weight of the baby against my shoulder, the crinkle of her fatly-diapered bottom and the sweet and eggy scent of her head, and I suddenly felt like crying. I glanced at Sydney, met her eyes for a brief, bewildered second, then raised my chin. In that one second I had made up my mind, and the next words I heard, words that seemed to be coming from my own mouth, were, “What if you left her with me instead?”

Sydney widened her eyes, sat perfectly still a moment and then said, “What would I tell David?”

“Tell him you know what he did to Jacqueline, and that you’re not leaving her alone with him again.”

“No, no Lainey, he’d kill me if I accuse him of anything! Why do you think I haven’t already?”

“Okay, then don’t outright accuse him. Tell him you don’t want her exposed to all the fighting, and that she’s staying with a friend till the custody battle’s over. But you can say it in such a way that he knows what you’re really talking about.”

Her eyes filled again and I reached for her hand. “And don’t actually go inside his house, okay? Talk to him outside, just in case. And if you think you’re in any kind of danger then come here, you can stay with us.”